


Honey, I Can't Be Your Savior

by thereweregiants



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Military, Modern AU, Prostitution, Sharing a Bed, Weddings, more tropes than you can shake a stick at ok, past r76 - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 18:40:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20086918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thereweregiants/pseuds/thereweregiants
Summary: It's bad enough that Gabriel Reyes - professional military commander, private social disaster - gets invited to his ex's wedding. It's worse that he gets roped into hiring an escort to be his fake boyfriend for the weekend.Just don't get emotionally involved, and everything will be fine. That's easy enough, right?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is vaguely inspired by the movie The Wedding Date, in that I read about half the wikipedia summary, said 'hey I think I watched that on an airplane a decade ago' and called it a day. this is So Very Romcom and I don't even care
> 
> it's also just a few days past the year anniversary of when I published my first Overwatch fic, almost half a million words ago. I'm so thankful for every comment and every kudo and especially for the people who have lowered themselves to being friends with me. thanks to everyone for letting me have a place in the fandom <3
> 
> title from [St Vincent's Savior](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VeMw_zhk)  
written mostly to a lot of Ennio Morricone

He’s _ bored_.

If someone had told Gabe when he accepted the promotion to commander that he’d be spending most of his time sitting on his ass and watching radar, waiting for his agents to check in, he’s not sure if he would have taken it. He has at least two hours before any action happens, but he’s still trapped here in his office. Gabe glances around, looking for a distraction. His office doesn’t even have a window, which he’d advocated for originally because of security purposes but he’s sure as hell regretting it now. Digging through his work bag, he comes up with a stack of mail that he’s been putting off looking through for days.

It’s not like he gets anything other than bills or advertisements.

Sure enough, there’s a bill, another bill, something advertising mattresses - how are there so many mattress stores around, anyways? Maybe there’s something to that conspiracy theory of Jamison’s that they’re used for money laundering - another bill, envelope with his name embossed, advertisement for hardware…

Wait, what? Gabe picks out the envelope, frowning. It’s nice, thick paper with his name handwritten in some kind of calligraphy. The return address is from Los Angeles, some street he’s never heard of. He’s also never heard of a ‘V. Smith”, who the letter is apparently from. Gabe knows a hundred Smiths, but no one with a name starting with V.

He opens it up, and...Huh. It’s what looks like a wedding invitation, all gold and navy on tasteful grey, with a small reply card and envelope and a sheet of parchment to keep everything nice and separated. Gabe doesn’t know anyone getting married - hell, Gabe barely knows anyone outside of work - so he doesn’t know who it could possibly be from.

_ We cordially request your presence at the union of Mr. Vincent Smith and Mr - _

Gabe’s eyes freeze as they hit the name. 

Jack. Jack Morrison is getting married.

He’s violently thrown back in time, to being fourteen and kissing someone for the first time with faint, teenager-soft stubble and bright blue eyes. To graduating high school, arms around each other with the world in front of them. To a breakup full of pointed hissed insults on the lawn of West Point, Gabe in his fancy graduation dress uniform, a shiny new second lieutenant faced with a Marine career in front of him and a suddenly now-former boyfriend who hated the military.

Gabe’s phone beeps with a text, one he’d gotten a few hours ago but had been ignoring because he’d seen his mother’s name. He glances at it now with a feeling of dread. _ Did you get Jack’s invitation? You should have gotten it by now. I told him he should invite you, he’s been so sweet keeping in touch all these years. _Gabe closes his eyes in consternation. Of course. Because Jack Morrison is the kind of ex where even though they broke up twenty five years ago, he still would have kept in contact with Gabe’s family. 

Of course.

Another beep, this time from his sister. _ don’t even think about not going to the wedding, mom is making me go so youd better fuckin be there you pussy._ Great. With both his mother and Christina on his back, this would be a nightmare to get out of. 

He stares blankly at the radar screen, until his eyes focus on his reflection, looking at himself the way another person might. Gabe is - well, Gabe. His body is good, impressive even, kept hard and in shape by decades of combat and training. His face is...another matter. Scatterings of scars, crows feet and lines around his mouth, bruised skin under his eyes that was seemingly made permanent about the same time he got his last promotion. Gabe isn’t vain, but they used to use his picture in recruitment ads.

Those days are long past.

He’s still grumpily glaring at the invitation when Ana waltzes in a half hour later. “Everything going alright? I thought you said that this was going to be an open and shut op?”

“Yeah, they’re all fine. Just waiting for them to check in.”

“Then what’s wrong with your face?” Before Gabe can say anything, long fingers have plucked the envelope off of his desk, inspecting it with an eagle eye. “Oh. Hmmm.”

“Don’t even start. I’m not going.”

Ana raises a single eyebrow. “Not even to see that boy of yours for one last time?”

Gabe rolls his eyes and sighs. He regrets getting drunk on tequila a decade back and telling Ana about The One That Got Away, also known as his high school boyfriend whom he had broken up with after college after a disagreement on where their lives were taking them. He was over Jack, really he was. He didn’t think about him more than once every other week or so, which is perfectly normal after not seeing someone for the better part of three decades.

Right?

“I’m serious. He hated the military back in high school and college, hated that I went to school for it. Always trying to buck the system one way or another. I can’t imagine him liking anything about what I’ve become.”

The eyebrow raises higher. “That’s...surprising. And almost the kind of thing I expected out of you as a teenager, to be honest.”

Gabe shrugs. It was what everyone thought when they looked at the two of them back then, too, for Gabe to be the bad boy and Jack to be the golden child. In reality Gabe toed the line and worked his ass off - he knew that in order to get anywhere he’d need every advantage that he could get his hands on, and wasn’t about to let people’s assumptions guide that. He graduated the top of his class and with more scholarship money than he could even use, intent on joining the military and getting the fuck out of LA.

Jack, on the other hand, pushed back against the system every chance he could. Despite looking like the perfect wealthy blond Valley stereotype, his family were farmers that didn’t have any more money than Gabe’s. He decided early on - about the time he and Gabe got together and found out how homophobic even liberal California could be - that he’d use people’s expectations and his looks to fight back, to spend half his time in detention from punching out bullies and the other half protesting what the community thought was appropriate schooling. 

It made Gabe love him.

It was also what broke them apart.

Jack couldn’t believe he was just going into another, bigger system. _ The army kills kids, Gabe! _ he’d yelled. _ They invade and shove their views on everyone and run roughshod over the rest of the world! _ Gabe had nodded and grabbed Jack’s face. _ That’s why, Jackie. I’m going to fix it from the inside. _

Gabe joined the Marines, Jack joined the Peace Corps. They hadn’t seen each other since.

He isn’t sure if he did what he told Jack he’d do, fixing it from the inside. He does kill people now, quite a lot of them, in fact. They’re bad people though, the ones outside of the law. Gabe came to terms with his black ops status long ago, but right now with the specter of Jack looming over him, uncertainty he hasn’t felt in years and years has raised its ugly head.

“Gabriel?” He gets the feeling that it’s not the first time Ana has said his name.

“Yeah?”

“Are you going to go?”

“No.” His tone is final. He’s not schlepping across the country to see his ex get hitched. Not to mention how he’d have to put in for vacation time, and...oh god, and to see his family without the buffer of holidays? No, thank you. Nothing could make him go to that goddamn wedding.

-x-x-x-x-x-

“Ana, you need to come to the wedding with me.”

She blinks, looking up at Gabe’s frantic face and hair that looks like he’s been pulling at it. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s in a month. I’ll get Petras to approve extra vacation time, or I’ll make up an op for you to be on, I promise. You just have to come with me.”

“Have a seat. What’s changed in the past day?” She pours him a cup of mint tea, then after a moment’s consideration pulls an unmarked bottle out of a drawer and pours a healthy slug in. Gabe chokes a bit when he takes a sip.

“The fuck? Peppermint schnapps?”

“The mint in the tea covers the smell. Now talk.”

Gabe sighs and takes another, smaller sip. “I got an email.”

“...congratulations,” Ana finally says when he doesn’t say anything more. “You get about a hundred of those a day.”

“From Jack.”

Ana raises an eyebrow high enough that she has to adjust the string on her eyepatch, and she pours some liquor into her own cup. “Go on.”

“Let me correct myself: from Jack and his _ fiancé_.” Gabe spits out the last word like a curse. 

“Please don’t tell me you went into some idiotic research spiral on the man -”

“He works for Médecins Sans Frontières! He gives half his money away to scholarships, anonymously. He’s on the board of three different community planning groups, and on every one of them he’s won special awards for being wonderful.” Gabe looks miserably up at Ana. “Last year he apparently convinced Jack to adopt a three-legged, one-eyed dog.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know the dog’s name -”

“The _ fiancé’s _ name, Gabriel.”

“Vincent.” Gabe slumps in his chair. Vincent was...perfect. Good looking, but not quite obnoxiously so. Accomplished in just about everything he tried, it seemed like, but quiet about it. He and Jack lived in a modest house outside of Philadelphia, and were pillars of their community. Gabe had read the email and wondered if it was somehow a different Jack Morrison that said he missed him and would love for him to meet Vincent, but there were little bits of humor and in-jokes that dug themselves into Gabe’s memory that proved that yes, this was Jack.

Jack works for a nonprofit now, involving rehabilitation for veterans. Gabe tries not to let his gorge rise at the irony of that. Apparently he and Vincent have been together for decades, but had decided not to get married until it was legal everywhere.

He tells all of this to Ana, aware of how petty and petulant he sounds. When he looks up he’s not surprised to see her biting back a smile. 

“I know what I sound like.”

“I don’t think you quite do. You’re clearly not over this man. And you think going to see him is going to help anything?”

Gabe stares into his cup, at the fragments of tea leaves swirling around. “I think I need...closure. He’s been - I don’t know how to put it. Unfinished business, I guess, that’s hung over me for decades.”

“And you want to get a look at his fiancé.”

“And I want to get a look at his fiancé.”

“And punch his face in.”

“And pun- Ana! Jesus, I’m not going to punch him. It’s their wedding, that would be childish.”

She rolls her eyes. “Unlike the rest of all of this.” Putting her hand over Gabe’s, she squeezes. “I’m not going with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t want to show up with me.”

Gabe raises an eyebrow of his own. “I don’t?”

“No. You want to show up with a younger, hotter model. You are going to get your closure and have a nice conversation with Jack, but you also should show him what he’s been missing. Serves him right for inviting you.”

“Ana, I haven’t dated in -”

“I know exactly how long it’s been since you dated.” 

Gabe doesn’t have a life. If it wasn’t for Ana dragging him into her family, he probably wouldn’t go anywhere except work and his apartment. If the itch gets too bad, he goes over to Dupont Circle and picks someone up for a night, but he got tired of how empty it made him feel afterwards so he hasn’t even done that for ages. He has family in Ana and Fareeha, he has work, what else does he need?

A date for this thing, apparently. Especially because he’d been telling his family he _ had _ been seeing someone, to get them off of his back. No details, his lifetime habit of being closemouthed helped, but...they thought he was with some nebulous person. And now, if he actually brought someone? They’d expect him to be in a _ relationship_.

Even though the thought makes him nauseous, he still tries. “I don’t suppose you’d let -”

“If the next word out of your mouth is my daughter’s name, I will empty my clip into your dick and not have a single regret,” Ana says easily. 

Gabe lets his head thunk down onto the table. “Ana, I don’t know anyone other than you two and people at work, who are almost all my subordinates. I don’t know how you expect me to be able to find someone.”

Ana makes a thoughtful noise, then tells Gabe to stay right there. There’s the sound of the door opening and closing, and Gabe spends the next few minutes dissecting his life and what brought him to this point. The door opens again, and a small, white business card is slid under Gabe’s forehead. “I made an appointment for you tonight.”

Gabe raises his head, looks at the card. It has a stylized purple skull logo on it, and says ‘calavera corp’ in lowercase, modern-looking letters, with an address near Logan Circle. “A skull corporation. That’s reassuring. Who are they?”

“A company owned by a friend of mine. She’ll help you out. Your appointment is for six, don’t be late.”

“That doesn’t give me any time to get changed after work.” Ana is getting up and leaving. “Ana? Ana! Who the fuck is this?”

“Don’t bother trying to look them up, you won’t find them,” she calls as she lets the door shut behind her.

Well, that’s just delightful. Gabe tries to look them up anyways and just gets lots of bad sugar skull tattoos. He sighs, resigning himself to whatever Ana has decided he should do.

-x-x-x-x-x-

At five minutes to six, Gabe tries to open a sleek, glass door at the address on the card. The door won’t budge. He knocks, expecting someone to come and greet him. Instead he gets a camera craning to look at him with eerie precision. 

“Name?” comes a bored voice from a hidden speaker.

“Gabriel Reyes.”

There’s a soft metallic sound, and when Gabe tries the door again it opens. One hallway decorated in black, chrome, and purple later, and he’s stepping into a fashionable room with a few chairs and couches scattered around. Gabe’s attention is grabbed by a woman sitting calmly at a large desk. Her hair is the same purple as the decorations, her eyebrows have trendy slices taken out of them, and there’s a beauty mark high on her cheekbone that’s so perfectly placed Gabe suspects it of being as much a facade as everything else here.

“So do you change the decor every time you dye your hair?” Gabe finds himself saying as he sits down in front of her. The woman narrows her eyes slightly, and her lips curve in a smile that makes Gabe think of some of his more dangerous operatives.

“Gabriel Reyes, born July 28th, 1971 in Los Angeles, California. Father passed in 2005, mother lives in Ojai, sister lives in Torrance and has two kids. Mazel tov. Graduated from Garfield High School in 1989. Go Bulldogs,” she recites as she looks down at her tablet, deadpan and sounding almost disinterested. She then runs down the rest of Gabe’s life, everything from his college major to his allergies to some of the ops that he’s been on - including a few that she really, really shouldn’t know about.

She finally comes to a stop some long minutes later. “Did I miss anything?”

Gabe blinks. “Can we hire you?”

The woman smiles again, slightly more real this time. “You tried.”

“Who the hell are you?” 

“You can call me Sombra. Ana called me, told me that you have an ex’s wedding coming up? As we just established, you have little life outside of your work. That’s where I come in.”

Gabe cocks his head. “What, are you a dating agency?”

Sombra laughs. “Nothing so plebeian. I have employees that fulfill certain duties for people in need of company, such as yourself.”

God damnit, Ana. “Escorts, you mean.”

Sombra waves a careless hand. “If you must. No sex, just companionship, and all perfectly legal. My people know what they’re doing.” Her smile sharpens. “We don’t cater to anyone who calls them escorts, for starters.” 

Gabe rolls his eyes, and continues the motion to glance around the expensively decorated room. “I get the feeling you don’t usually do weddings for regular people.”

“State dinners and balls are more of our usual, yes.”

“So why am I here?”

Sombra’s mouth twists into a slow, catlike curve that tries valiantly but uselessly to grab at any molecule of heterosexuality that might exist within Gabe. “Ana and I are...close. I owe her a favor.”

Gabe isn’t even going to touch that. “All right.” He narrows his eyes. “What’s it going to cost?”

“Nothing but a very enthusiastic thank you to Ana. I’m just clearing our debts.”

“And she’s okay with that?”

“Apparently so.” At Gabe’s continued suspicious look, Sombra settles back in her chair, looking for the first time like a person instead of a performance. “Listen, this isn’t our usual level. No crazy clothing or jewelry or fake identities or props or accoutrements.”

“Accoutrements?”

“Accoutrements,” she repeats firmly. “Trust in that you don’t want to know what those entail. You just need a boy who can put on a better-than-mediocre suit and make conversation for a few hours. That’s…” she waves her hands in the air, gesturing through her disdain. “That’s nothing. That’s barely worthy of the title of job.” 

Gabe is feeling offended, and he doesn’t even know why. “If it’s so unimportant -” he starts to get up.

“I didn’t say that, sit yourself down. I’m not telling Ana I let you go without this in order. Now. When is the wedding?”

“Sunday August 13th.”

“All right,” Sombra says, typing rapidly on her computer. “Get in Saturday, leave Monday. Three days.”

“I -” Gabe starts to say something, then bites it back. Sombra looks up, fingers paused in mid-air. “What.”

He sighs. “I hadn’t even been thinking of this, but. I don’t get into town more than once a year, my mom and sister wanted to see me.”

Sombra takes it in stride, typing faster. “So fly in Friday, then. Easy. Take him along and use it as a test.”

“I’m not telling my family that I’m bringing a goddamn escort.”

“_ Companion _, Gabe. And I meant that you could test out yourselves as a couple, iron out the kinks. How do you expect whoever you want to impress to believe you didn’t hire someone for the weekend unless you sell it?”

“Don’t call me Gabe,” he snaps out, but his brain is already elsewhere. This is all completely out of hand. Gabe wasn’t intending on bringing someone home to meet his family, for Christ’s sake. Except his sister is going to be at the wedding anyways... God. His head is buried in his hands before he realizes it.

Sombra is muttering to herself. “How are there so many events this weekend? Everyone is booked except for. Hmmm.”

Gabe pulls his head up, looking suspiciously at Sombra. “That doesn’t sound like a good noise.”

“No, no, it’s fine. Good for you, bad for me. Somehow everyone and their tía needs eye candy that weekend. Thanks to a cancellation, you’re getting one of my best guys, which means I’m losing money on this.” She gnaws on a plum-stained lip as her eyes flick back and forth between her computer screen and the tablet with Gabe’s information. “Either you two are going to get along like a house on fire or you’ll kill each other, I’m not quite sure which.”

Gabe frowns. “That doesn’t sound like someone I’ll enjoy spending a weekend with.”

Sombra brushes off his concern. “Oh, don’t worry. He’s the epitome of professionalism. It’s just…” she gives him a considering look. “You’re not our usual type of client.”

Bristling internally, Gabe reminds himself that he has multiple medals for diplomacy, even though they were mostly given to him in secret while he was still covered in blood. “How so.”

“Calm down.” Sombra seems to choose her words carefully. “Generally people that come to us are used to playing the game. We get military people fairly often, but they’re fat old white men who live behind desks and couldn’t get it up were it even an option - they’re just there to have someone pretty on their arm. My people are used to working at a high level, where everything is very careful and very beautiful, but not genuine. Levels on levels, requiring intricately put together identities and performances. You, on the other hand, need someone who is the opposite of that. To be a regular, normal boyfriend going to a wedding. It will be...interesting.”

Gabe’s eyebrows lower. “Are you saying your employee won’t be good at this?”

Sombra gives another slow smile, but this one is softer, a hint of fondness. “The opposite. He’s an old friend of mine, and a few quiet days where he doesn’t have to be in a tuxedo or wearing sushi or whatever will be right up his alley. He hates all of the frills of high society, even though he’s quite good at it.”

“All right.” He eyes Sombra. “Anything else you need from me?”

“We’ll set up a meeting for the two of you at some point between now and then, iron some things out. I’ll contact you.”

They both stand and shake hands, although Gabe has the inexplicable need to count his fingers afterwards to make sure they’re all still there. He makes his way out back into the street, and considers what just happened as he walks back to his car. 

He isn’t sure whether to kiss Ana or throttle her, but he knows she deserves one of them.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Gabe has been pointedly not thinking about the wedding, so it’s a surprise when he gets a text message two weeks later. It’s from Sombra - all her contact information is in his phone, although he’s fairly sure that he never actually put it in there. 

(He mentioned her name to the tech department once, and watched their faces turn white.)

_ You have a reservation at Charlie Parker at 7 pm. Don’t be late. _ Gabe sighs, but it’s not like he would be doing anything tonight other than going on a run. At least he’ll get a good steak out of it.

He gets there early, goes to the bar and orders a whisky. A double - he’s going to need it to get through tonight. Gabe had made the mistake of telling Ana his evening plans, resulting in her and Fareeha coming over and critiquing everything about him, starting with his apartment and ending with his haircut. He’d been letting his hair grow out a bit out of sheer laziness - it was under a hat for work nearly every day anyways - and Fareeha told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to buzz it back again. Ana, though, reached up and ran her hand through the waves, gripping tight for just a moment. _ Keep it just like this_, she told Gabe with a tilted smile that made him frown and Fareeha roll her eyes.

They’d picked out clothes for him - he had no idea what the difference was between these and any of his other clothes, but both women looked at him with judgmental looks on their tattooed faces and eventually deemed him acceptable. Ana left him with strict instructions to report back on everything, and then left in the same whirlwind that she and Fareeha arrived in.

Gabe traces a finger around the edge of his glass as he wonders what the guy he’s meeting will be like. Young and twinky, probably, given the pretty-boy roles that Sombra said that her employees tended to do. Gabe isn’t sure how he’s going to sell it, given the kind of man he’s normally attracted to. Someone like...that guy.

There’s a man making his way towards the bar, all broad shoulders and trim waist and hips that sway when he walks. Gabe can’t see his face with the longish hair in front of it, but he can see the sharp edge of a jaw covered in a beard that’s making its way towards scruff. He gives his ass an appreciative once-over as the guy turns to talk to the hostess, making note of the guy’s clothing for future reference. Maybe after the meeting he can try and track him down, see if he’d be into grabbing a hotel room somewhere, or even a bathroom stall - he’s not picky. It’s...been a while for Gabe, even longer since it’s been with someone who genuinely caught his eye.

Gabe turns back to his drink. It’s close to seven, he should probably go see if the...companion has arrived yet. Before he can get up, there’s a low voice at his side. 

“Excuse me,” the voice says with a hint of some kind of twang. Gabe glances over, eyebrows raising to see the man who’d caught his eye just a minute ago. A spike of regret goes through him as he realizes he’s going to have to shoot him down, at least for the moment. Before he can do more than open his mouth, however, the man says: “Gabriel?”

Oh. 

Oh no. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Gabe isn’t supposed to be attracted to the man he’s hiring as basically a hooker without the sex. This is...bad.

Gabe moves on automatic, the repeated actions from a hundred hundred meetings over the years letting his body smile and put a hand out to shake without actively thinking about it. He takes in warm eyes and a crooked smile, a friendly voice and fingers that linger on his for just a second too long.

Hell.

They’re seated at a table by the hostess, drinks already in hand from the bar. The man sits across from Gabe, relaxed in his chair. “I guess some introductions are in order, on my end at least: my name is Jesse McCree, I work for Sombra. She said that you have a wedding to go to?”

Gabe nods, slowly. “She gave the impression that those aren’t your usual deal.”

Jesse chuckles, low in his throat. “I suppose. Not unless it involves someone important. My friend and I started the whole company with Sombra, way back when. We do the fancy stuff now, but I’ve been to everything from events at the White House to Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Thanksgiving dinner. Seriously.” Gabe can’t help the skepticism in his voice.

There’s another laugh from Jesse - unlike nearly everything he got from Sombra, it all seems genuine. “Yeah, it was as a favor to my buddy’s brother, wanted somethin’ to shock his uptight family. Sombra had all kinda fun dressin’ me up as someone right outta prison. It was effective, I gotta say.”

There’s a pause as they order, Jesse’s all friendliness but not flirtation with the waitress, which Gabe silently approves of. Jesse settles back, a fresh bourbon in hand. “So we’re goin’ to have to get to know each other a bit. First off, why do you need a date at all for this? Not to try and put us out of business or anythin’, but it’s not like they won’t let you in without one.” He gives Gabe a slow once over: half measuring, half suggestive. “You don’t really need the image boost, either.”

“Thank you, I think.” Gabe looks down into the depths of his whisky. Oddly enough it’s almost easier to bare himself emotionally to a stranger. It’s not like he’s going to see Jesse again after the wedding, after all. “I wasn’t planning on going, originally. It’s my ex. We were together all through high school and college, broke up after. Then I got an email from him, talking about how he was looking forward to seeing me. And then, apparently, he’s kept in contact with my family because that’s the kind of guy he is, so they started harassing me.”

“So you want to get him back?” Gabe looks up, and Jesse’s face is in the same slight smile it’s been in, no betrayal of what he might be thinking. 

“No, no,” Gabe says hastily with a frown. “It’s been two and a half decades since we’ve seen each other and I’m no homewrecker.” He stares into the space over Jesse’s shoulder, a habit from decades of parade rest. “I want. Closure, I suppose. And his fiancé is…” he trails off, unsure of how to approach the subject of Vincent.

“Good or bad?”

“Good doesn’t touch it. Like if he was a character in something, you’d be angry at how perfect he was written.” Gabe shakes his head, to himself more than anything. “I’m not competing with him, I don’t even know Jack anymore. I’m. I’m honestly not sure what I’m doing, going to this.” There’s a small voice at the back of Gabe’s head that says whatever he’s doing he just doesn’t want to face it alone, but he firmly ignores it. 

Jesse shrugs. “You don’t have to. You’re military, yeah? Stop thinkin’ about this all in terms of that. You don’t have to know everything, don’t have to control everything.” Gabe doesn’t say anything back, because he’s not sure if he wants to snap at Jesse’s judgement of him or agree that he might have a point. Thankfully their food arrives, and what at first is awkward silence becomes easier as they eat companionably.

Leaning back and setting his fork down, Jesse lets out a quiet noise of contentment. “If I could eat this food every day, I would.” He stretches, his head falling back, and Gabe lets himself give him a quick glance. Still his type. Damnit. Jesse leans back forward, rolling his shoulders into place. “So, Gabriel Reyes, tell me about yourself.”

Gabe sets down his own fork, pinning Jesse with a steady look that he holds until the other man looks away. “I figured Sombra would have given you the full rundown on me. She seems...thorough.”

Jesse barks a laugh, abrupt and loud. “That she is. She’s a snoop at heart, gettin’ to research clients scratches an itch for her that could make itself known in a lot worse ways.” Gabe thinks back to the tech department’s reaction and silently agrees. “That’s her own research, though. If I were your boyfriend, what would I know about you?”

Gabe snorts. “That’s a large part of why I don’t see anyone. My work isn’t something I can talk about much, and it’s caused problems with people I’ve seen in the past.” Gabe has a dozen months-long relationships, every one petering out when they get frustrated at his refusal to discuss what he does every day. In turn Gabe is used to keeping things close to his chest, and so he’s not really willing to open up much immediately anyways. It’s not a combination that makes for easy relationships.

“Maybe that’s a startin’ point, then, that I do know more about you than your past relationships. I do anyways because of Sombra’s background check,” Jesse says easily.

“So what, you’re going to play the part of someone in my department?” Gabe makes a show of looking Jesse up and down. “I don’t feel like that’s going to fly.”

Jesse rolls his eyes. “That’s not what I meant. I can be whoever you want me to be, I just meant that it’ll help sell it as someone that you trust, that you’re actually in a relationship with.”

That makes sense, he supposes. “Well. I’m commander of a special operations unit within the military. I, ah, suppose you’d call us part of Homeland Security.” Technically. It’s what he tells his family, anyways. “It’s my life, it’s what I’ve worked towards building up over the years. I don’t have much free time because of it, but I’m okay with that.” 

“You can’t just work and sleep. Do you do anything else? At all?”

It’s embarrassing, really, but he doesn’t. This is why Gabe doesn’t do relationships. “I work out. Run a lot. I have friends from work, we mostly just go out to decompress together. That’s about it.”

“No hobbies? Any sports?” Jesse doesn’t sound judgemental at all, more encouraging. It doesn’t stop Gabe from shifting uncomfortably in his seat. 

“No.”

Jesse takes a long sip of his drink, gazing up at the ceiling. He looks back to Gabe after a minute. “I’m not tryin’ to put you on the spot, or make you feel bad about anything. I’m just tryin’ to figure out how we could have met, how I could fit in to your life.” He studies Gabe, sharp eyes taking in the details of his face and body. It’s uncomfortable, a level of scrutiny that Gabe’s used to only from enemy agents. “You said you work out. At a gym?”

“Yeah.” 

Jesse shrugs easily. “Then I’m a personal trainer. It would be a way for us to meet that doesn’t involve your job, and believe it or not it’s something I actually did for a minute back in the day.”

Gabe gives Jesse his own scrutinizing look. His button up stretches over a broad chest, and when he reaches for his drink, solid biceps shift beneath his sleeves. Gabe could believe him as a trainer. Although…

“Jesus, I’m never going to hear the end of it from my family.”

Jesse makes a questioning noise.

“I just…” Gabe sighs. “I don’t bring people home. And now that I finally do and it’s a personal trainer - between the job and your age, everyone is just going to see ‘trophy boyfriend’.”

“So? You see your family only a few times a year, I’m guessing?” He waits for Gabe’s nod to continue. “What does it matter if you have a trophy boyfriend or not, then? They’re not the ones livin’ your life. I bet that they mostly want you to be happy, and if you sell it like that’s me, then they’ll be fine.”

He makes it sound so easy, damn him. But Jesse literally was friendly to people for a living, he had no idea how Gabe really lived his life or dealt with his family. At least he was a professional? 

“Here,” Jesse says, a reassuring tone in his voice that makes Gabe bristle a bit. He wasn’t like some animal that needed to be handled. “How long ago did we start dating?”

Gabe looks at him blankly. 

Jesse rolls his eyes. “We haven’t been together that long because otherwise you would’ve told your family specifically about me. Not to mention, I’d know a mite more than we can cram in over the next few weeks. At the same time, we have to have been together for a decent amount of time or I wouldn’t haul across the country to go to a wedding with you. Let’s call it...four months.”

Gabe nods hesitantly. This was outlining mission parameters. He could...do this. “We’ve been together four months,” he repeats. “We met at the gym -” he tells Jesse the name, who makes a note of it in his phone. “I don’t need a personal trainer, though.”

With an easy smile, Jesse winks. “I was admiring your form, and I hit on you. Drinks, dinner, we end up dating.” He taps at his phone, and Gabe takes the moment to breathe deeply. Is that as easy as it could be? If this were real life? To just - see someone, think they were attractive and ask them out, without wondering if they were there to gather intel or wanting a recommendation from somewhere? Gabe blinks as Jesse starts speaking again.

“I’ve got a housemate. He has a cat, I want a dog but our place won’t allow ‘em. I mostly live off of coffee, though I like to bring people over to barbecue a lot. I make my own hot sauce, and never met a bean I didn’t like.” Jesse continues, giving Gabe a rambling account of various likes and preferences, what Gabe eventually realizes is the information that he would know after dating him for a while. Jesse stops at the look on Gabe’s face with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, I’m makin’ notes on all of this to email you. It’s not like you hafta study up on it, but it’ll give a baseline of what you know about me.” 

Gabe nods. He wonders how much of it is real, from the roommate to the allergy to cottonwood, how much is Jesse playing a part. “What, uh. Do you need to know about me?”

Jesse tilts his head, fixing Gabe with a look that’s weirdly knowing for just the hour they’ve been sitting together. “I have Sombra’s file, so I know some facts. Outside of that, it’s what you’re willing to open up about.”

It's a sobering thought to realize Gabe hasn’t said much to his ‘dates’ other than checking to see if one of them had condoms and lube for quite a while now. “I...as I said, I don’t do much. I’m burnt out on travel from too many years of doing it, finally settled down long enough to keep a plant alive when I took my last promotion a few years ago. I read. History, mysteries. Sci-fi for some escapism. I run. Wish I had the time for a dog, it’d be nice to have some company.”

He talks, haltingly at first, then easier as Jesse asks friendly questions about this and that. Gabe snaps out answers, aware he’s sounding like a dick but somehow unable to help himself. Jesse persists, though, taking it in stride and talking easily. Gabe finds himself loosening up finally (the whisky helps), telling some story about his mother and a Christmas dinner that ended in a call from the fire department. Jesse laughs loud and real, throwing his head back. Gabe’s eyes catch on the line of his collarbone before he can stop himself, and he gives himself a mental lecture about not being attracted to him.

Gabe can’t help but stiffen back up a bit after that, and the conversation dies off. Finally Jesse drains the last of his drink and sits back. “I think this’ll work out just fine. Let’s exchange contact information, and I’ll send you a summary of what we talked about today, and you send me the schedule for the wedding, anythin’ special I might need to bring. Sombra will get in touch with you about the flight.”

When Jesse hands Gabe his phone, he can’t help but glance at the background picture. It’s him, Sombra, and an attractive man with green-streaked black hair. They all look younger than they are now, Sombra with short brown hair and Jesse in an unfortunate leather jacket with a sleeve ripped off. They look happy. Young.

Gabe sighs and inputs his phone number that he’s likely had for longer than Jesse has been alive.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Ana attempts to accost Gabe at work the next day. He fends her off for a while, having a meeting with internal budget and then a working lunch with people from the House Ways and Means committee. He comes out of it feeling as drained as their coffers. Somehow he’s supposed to send a team to Equatorial Guinea to rescue a journalist who’d been thrown in prison with the military budget equivalent of about forty five cents and a piece of string. 

More meetings, monitoring a quick operation, and then Ana pins him down eating dinner in his office. Ignoring how he’s in the middle of what was a very nice burrito about ten seconds ago, she settles herself in, stealing his drink without so much as a by-your-leave.

“Well? How did it go?”

Gabe stares at her, then chews deliberately slowly. “How did what go?” he asks blandly.

“Meeting with the guy you’re going to be taking to the wedding, you idiot. How was he? Suitably young and attractive enough to annoy your ex? If he’s one of Sombra’s I’m sure he is.”

Cocking his head, Gabe looks at Ana speculatively. “What’s your relationship with Sombra, anyways?”

“We’re friends.” Despite the even-toned reply, there’s the faintest touch of red to Ana’s cheeks. Ana Amari does not blush...except apparently over entrepreneurial young women with somewhat terrifying hacking skills. 

Gabe rolls his eyes, but lets her change the subject when she presses again. “He’s...very nice.”

Ana raises an eyebrow. “Nice isn’t your style, Gabriel.” He eats a bite of burrito. “Seriously. How was it?”

He waffles for a minute on what he’s going to say before giving up and rubbing his forehead with a hand. “_ I _ wasn’t supposed to find him attractive.” She’s actively laughing at him now. “Shut up, Amari.”

“Oh no, this is delightful. Perhaps this...boy? Sombra said they went to college together so I know he’s quite a bit younger than you, so the word ‘boy’ applies here - perhaps he’ll be good for you. Get you out of your rut a bit.”

“I don’t need to get out of my rut.” There’s no use denying there is an actual rut, even Gabe can’t try and sell that.

“Of course not, dear. Now.” Ana folds her hands and leans forward, and Gabe is uncomfortably aware of exactly why she is so very good at interrogation. “We need to work out what you’re going to wear.”

Gabe ends up with clothing that he still doesn’t think is much different than everything else he owns, except tighter and somehow twice the price. He takes Ana and Fareeha out to dinner after - he’s unsure if he’s doing it in thanks or they asked for it as a consulting cost - and they make his head spin with what he should and shouldn’t be doing during the weekend of the wedding.

He finally snaps at them, unable to take one more insinuation at what they think he needs to do to...fix him, or whatever they think they’re doing. The rest of dinner is quiet.

Ana grabs him by his car, pulls him into a hug. Fareeha wraps strong arms around him from the back, and Gabe wonders when she got to be his height. “You know it’s ‘cause we love you, right?” she murmurs in his ear.

For a minute it’s like Gabe could handle anything - Jesse, his family, the wedding - because he’s surrounded by people that have his back. But then they let go and Ana whaps him upside the back of the head and tells him to get sleep, he looks like hell, and it’s back to normal.

He’s been exchanging texts here and there with Jesse, letting him know what to pack and so on. Sombra had taken care of Jesse’s flight, and assured him they were seated next to each other. That’s good, in theory, but Gabe is now realizing he’ll be trapped in a tube thirty thousand feet in the air with a virtual stranger that’s supposed to turn into a boyfriend at the end of six hours, somehow.

This will be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

Gabe wasn’t prepared for Jesse at four in the morning. He’d been attractive before, in a shirt that strained around his chest and pants that fit just right, but now? In a faded flannel that was worn thin at the elbows and soft sweatpants that he hurried to tell Gabe he would change out of before meeting his family? Gabe is just glad he seems sleepy enough to not notice how Gabe’s eyes keep lingering in inappropriate places.

It would be a nearly two hour drive from LAX to his mother’s place in Ojai, so Gabe told Jesse he could go ahead and nap if he wanted to. Jesse’s eyes widen at that. “We’re stayin’ with your mother?” he asks.

Gabe shrugs. “The wedding is just a few miles away and she’s coming. Figured we’d be driving her anyways, might as well save on a hotel.”

“And you’re...okay with that?”

Gabe gives a short laugh. “No. But it’s what’s happening.” 

They check in and make the gate just in time. Jesse murmurs something about having the drive to talk, and he folds his arms and tucks his head into the side of his chair. Somewhere above the midwest his head falls onto Gabe’s shoulder. It’s...comforting, in a strange way. 

He doesn’t move for the next hour and a half, waving off the flight attendant with a glare when she comes by with pretzels.

When they arrive in LAX, Jesse wakes with the jolting of the plane landing. “Oh lord, I’m sorry,” he says sheepishly as he lifts his head. “Must have been out hard.”

Gabe shrugs stiffly. “It’s fine. Let’s go grab the rental.” It’s a neutral black sedan, Gabe’s automatic go-to when travelling for work because it’s so unnoticeable, and the stick shift makes it less likely to be stolen. Jesse comes back with his sweatpants replaced by jeans and two cups of coffee, handing one to Gabe as he slings his duffel over his shoulder. Gabe nods his thanks, though his lips thin back at tasting the sugar in it. He tries to shrug off Jesse’s muttered apology but isn’t sure if it’s successful.

He relaxes as they move onto the highway and they get out of the city - it’s always been a nice drive, although weirder than usual with a stranger beside him. Jesse has perked up with the addition of caffeine - something Gabe files away in the back of his mind - and somehow manages to rest one ankle on his other knee. Gabe notices two things: one, that he’s wearing actual goddamn cowboy boots - he’s trying very hard not to comment about the fucking hat - and secondly that his leg is very warm when he accidentally brushes Jesse’s knee with his wrist when he shifts.

“Is the cowboy getup an affectation, or do you come by it naturally?”

Jesse huffs something that might be a laugh. “Is the asshole veneer an affectation, or are you just a dick?”

Gabe is silent for a minute, trying to figure out how to answer. 

Jesse breaks the quiet first: “I just -”

“No, you’re right,” Gabe says, grudgingly. “I told you before that I don’t - I don’t do social things. Ever. Even my job, we’re...I can’t say much about what we do, but just trust me in that we’re not the kind of military that gets invited to state dinners and shit. It’s not pleasant work, and there’s a reason I’m in charge of it. I’m not good at people.” _ Other than being able to put together the right combination of personalities to kill cleanly and quickly_, Gabe thinks bitterly.

“Mmm.” Jesse doesn’t sound offended, more speculative. “Might be that you just haven’t found the right people.” 

“What right people? I can’t talk to anyone about my job and I have no time for anything else.”

Jesse laughs, something genuine but with a slight sour edge to it. “Trust me, darlin’, I know exactly how that goes.”

Gabe wants to look over at him, but they’re at a twisty part of the road. “How does that work for you, dating people as a job? Can’t be easy on your personal life.”

“That’s uh, not somethin’ I really talk about with clients.”

Rolling his eyes, Gabe nudges at Jesse’s knee as he downshifts. “I’m being strongarmed into this farce by my best friend and you’re going to something far below your pay grade. Let’s admit that I’m not a normal client.”

He sees a bit of motion out of the corner of his eye, Jesse making some kind of gesture of agreement. “It is what it is. I’m workin’ during when most people go on dates, and it’s hard to bring it up to people when I do click with ‘em. You gotta be honest in a relationship, and it all doesn’t tend to go over well.” A shrug. “Can’t complain though, get to go out and eat fancy food and get paid for it. ‘S a pretty good life, overall.”

Gabe’s about to say something, he isn’t even sure what, when Jesse says - “In case you were interested, by the by, sex is a thousand with half up front.”

The only reason Gabe doesn’t drive them off the road is decades of being calm under literal gunfire. It’s still a close thing. After a moment of trying to swallow through a too dry throat, he says, “Sombra made it clear that you guys are just uh. Companions.”

“She has to, for legal reasons. No pressure, ‘specially as you’re ‘not a normal client’.” His impression of Gabe’s stilted tones is painfully accurate. “Still just puttin’ it out there.”

Gabe needs a change of subject, fast. He clears his throat. “So I haven’t done this before, any major pitfalls I need to look out for so I don’t fuck myself over?”

Jesse chuckles a bit. “What, not concerned about fuckin’ me over?”

_ Not like that_, comes to mind before Gabe can stop it. “You get to go back across the country and never see these people again. I’m related to them.”

There’s a moment of quiet, before Jesse speaks. Softer, less banter. “I’ve been meanin’ to ask, especially as I’ve gotten to know you a bit. I know that you said that this was for your ex, showin’ that you’re doin’ well and all of that. I get the feelin’ though that it’s also some for your family.”

Gabe doesn’t answer, at first. He can feel Jesse’s eyes on his face. “You’re...not wrong. If you’re meeting them I guess I should tell you about them. My mom is pretty great, honestly, although she doesn’t really get why I do what I do. She’s retired, worked as a teacher. My sister is - well. I love her and we get along pretty well as adults, but she found the love of her life and settled down and had kids, and doesn’t understand why I don’t do the same.”

“What’s her spouse like, and the kids?”

“Her wife was Margaret. She was a researcher along with Christina, they met in the lab. Died a few years back from cervical cancer.” Gabe nods acknowledgement at Jesse’s noise of apology. “It was only a couple of years after my dad died, the family wasn’t doing well. And. Well. I was on a deep cover mission with limited communication. Missed the funeral. Don’t know if Christy has ever really forgiven me for it.”

“Sometimes jobs get in the way of real life.” Jesse sounds sadder than Gabe would expect, and he glances over to see him looking out the window.

“Anyways. Christy has twins, Natalia and Adrian. They’re - kids. I like them, but I don’t see them enough to get to know them like I should.”

Gabe fills the rest of the time telling Jesse about this and that, the ranch house his mom lives in near the lake that she bought dilapidated and then rebuilt, and the mountains that surround the area. “It’s full of New Ager quacks,” Gabe says derisively, “But it’s safe.”

“You really care about them, don’t you?” Jesse says thoughtfully.

“Well, they’re family. Of course I do.”

A short laugh, without much humor in it. “You’d be surprised. I spend most of my days with people where family is just another set of accessories.” 

Gabe thinks, as he focuses on a switchback road that twists and turns. “Is it hard, always having to play a part?” Gabe is long past the time where he had to pretend to be someone for the job - now he’s commander and handler. He was never very good at it, either, too secure in who he was to understand what it meant to be someone else.

“Eh. Somethin’ I’ve gotten used to over the years. You develop roles, personas. ‘S not like you have to be a brand new person every time.”

As Gabe drives, he wonders who Jesse is going to be with him.

-x-x-x-x-x-

There’s a rapidfire stream of Spanish being yelled into Gabe’s chest, but he doesn’t really care because his nose is buried in his mom’s hair and it smells like home. When he pulls back she slaps him on the cheek, hard enough to hurt but her fingers are gentle as they trace his scars and the sharp edge of a cheekbone.

“You’re too thin, mijo. You’re not sleeping, either,” she says, no room in her tone for argument. “Go in and say hello to your sister.”

Gabe steps back, but doesn’t go anywhere. Jesse steps forward, a warm smile on his face and his hand out. He’s stopped in his tracks by Gabe’s mother’s face, a calculating look that is obviously measuring him up. Forty years of wrangling high schoolers left her mostly impervious to charm, but Jesse’s smile doesn’t fade. 

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, ma’am. I’m Jesse McCree,” he says, taking the final few steps forward.

Gabe’s mother takes his hand, her small fingers swallowed up by Jesse’s broad ones. “It is good to meet you, Jesse, and even know your name as my son decided that telling me about you at all was not information I needed to know, apparently.” Jesse’s smile broadens into a grin as he realizes that the annoyance is directed at Gabe and not him. “Call me Aliza, please. Dinner will be ready in a bit, Gabriel, go help him with the bags.”

He doesn’t bother protesting that he would have taken them anyways, just sighs and picks up his duffel and suit bag. 

Inside the house, Gabe’s half turned to say something to Jesse when he finds himself in a headlock. It’s only the familiar smell of perfume that hasn’t changed in twenty years that keeps him from sweeping a leg and slamming his opponent to the ground.

“Jesus fuck, when was the last time you showered?” Gabe says, muffled into an armpit.

“Que te den you dick, you’re not around enough to miss my stink.” A kick to a shin, and Gabe is let go. Christina’s broad grin is something that Gabe would never admit out loud that he’s missed, but he has. He bears her sloppy kiss on the cheek with a roll of his eyes, fully aware that he has bright red lipstick on his face and no hands to wipe it off with.

Christina steps back and folds her arms, looking at Jesse with a far more blatantly scrutinizing look than their mother. “So you’re the one that Gabi decides to bring home after all these years,” she says with just a trace of a smile on her lips.

Jesse shrugs easily. “Didn’t sound to me like he had much choice in comin’ home.” 

Her red lips stretching out into something more genuine, Christina unfolds her arms and snatches the suit bag out of Jesse’s arms. “I like you.” She takes Gabe’s bags as well, telling him, “I’ll put these in the guest room, you go introduce him to the spawn.”

“Spawn?” Jesse asks, as he follows Gabe through the hallways.

“Yeah. You didn’t happen to wear a cup, did you?” 

“...No?” Jesse’s semi-question is answered by Gabe staggering back and grunting as he’s slammed into by two small meteors.

“Uncle Gabe!”

“Hey, gremlins.” He leans down to kiss the tops of two dark brown heads. “When’d you get glasses?”

Natalia frowns up at him through her new lenses, looking so much like his sister that it makes Gabe’s heart hurt for a second. “Spring break. I look like a _ nerd _.”

Gabe smiles down before grabbing her and her brother under his arms like he’s carrying around a couple of pillows. “Nerds are in, now,” he tells his niece as she ineffectively kicks her legs in futile, youthful rage. Jesse badly hides his laughter behind a hand as he follows them into the kitchen. 

“So who’re you?” Natalia asks Jesse through narrowed eyes in an expression that Gabe recognizes from his own mirror, once he lets her down. 

“This is Jesse,” Gabe says. “He’s my boyfriend.” The words come out easily, even though they taste sour.

“Your hat is dumb,” she says.

Before Gabe can do anything other than open his mouth, Jesse raises his eyebrows. “Bold words from a girl in glasses.” Natalia growls - is his sister raising wolves here, or kids? - and jumps at Jesse. They play wrestle - for whatever that means when one person weighs three times as much as the other and the primary mode of attack seems to be tickling - for a minute, until Jesse holds her upside down, looking her in the face as her legs kick uselessly in the air.

“Truce?”

“Hmph,” is the reply, accompanied by a shrug. When she’s set down she punches him in the thigh lightly but then nods and flounces away. Adrian just looks at Jesse with dark, wide eyes then follows his sister.

“...so that’s the kids. Natalia’s a firecracker, Adrian is...Adrian doesn’t talk a lot,” Gabe says, once the children are gone. 

“I see Natalia learned tact from her uncle,” Jesse says dryly, corner of his mouth twitching up at Gabe’s glower.

“If I punch you it’ll hurt a lot more,” he says. 

“I can think of better things to do with your hands,” is the low reply, and before Gabe can think of how the hell to process that, Christina is coming in with a Dutch oven in hand.

“Nope, no flirting in here when I haven’t been on a date in years,” she says briskly, before shoving the dusty pot into Jesse’s startled arms. “You clean that out, Gabe you trim the pork, it’s in the fridge.”

“What are we making?” asks Jesse over the sound of the faucet.

“Pulled pork. My dad’s old recipe, we make it whenever I’m in town. I guarantee it’s the best you’ll ever have.”

“You just say that because you haven’t had my momma’s pulled pork. Made with tomatoes and onions from her garden.”

Gabe’s eyes are on the wickedly sharp knife he’s using to slice the fat on the pork, but his attention is all on Jesse. “What do your parents think about what you do?”

“You mean bein’ a personal trainer?” The statement is heavy with sarcasm, and Gabe rolls his eyes and mutters under his breath that no one was around. “Nah, it’s uh. My parents are gone, long time now.”

Jesse can’t be more than his late twenties, early thirties maybe. Gabe doesn’t like to think about what that might mean. “Sorry.”

“Eh, better to find out now than in the middle of dinner, I s’pose.”

“Yeah, but. You’re playing a role. Your parents could be whoever you wanted.”

The sound of the scrubber on metal slows for a minute, and as Gabe turns to grab the spices he sees Jesse frowning down at the pan - an expression he hasn’t seen before on the man’s face. “True,” he says, but his expression doesn’t change.

Gabe pats the spice mixture into the pork as Jesse oils the pan and sets it to heating. When he looks up, five pounds of meat later, he sees Jesse’s eyes fixed on his hands, rubbing the spices in. 

“Jesse?”

He shakes himself a bit, but when he meets Gabe’s eyes his own are dark. “Sorry. Must’ve zoned out a bit.”

Huh.

Gabe sears the meat and then sticks it in the oven to cook. He chucks the timer at Christina’s head, who catches it without looking up from the paper in front of her. “Gotta do better than that, asshole.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Pork's in, you made the sauce?” At her sound of assent, Gabe says, “We’re going to take a walk around, I can show him the area.” Jesse goes out the door, but Christina catches Gabe’s arm before he can follow.

“I’m giving you a hard time because it’s you and me but - I’m glad you brought someone home, Gabi. And I don’t know if it’s because of me and Mom or the kids, but you don’t have to stand three feet away from him. You know we had the talk with the kids awhile ago and Mom just...wants you to be happy.” Gabe wonders how he can get out of this conversation. “I’m not say fuck him over the kitchen counter, but no one’s going to bite your head off for some PDA, okay?” Christina - his baby sister who’s all of two inches shorter than him and the strongest woman he knows, is looking at Commander Gabriel goddamn Reyes like she’s afraid he might break. 

Gabe gives her a kiss on the forehead and a flick on the nose, and says, “Just for that I’ll blow him in your shower.”

“Do that and I make sure the kids come in to _ your _bed when they have nightmares.”

Gabe pauses, hand on the door. “Those still happening?”

Christina sighs, rubs at her forehead. She suddenly looks every one of her forty five years. “Yeah. Getting better, but. Yeah.”

Gabe gives a tight smile as she turns away, and goes out the door to find Jesse leaning against the railing, a small lit cigarillo in his hand.

“Okay if I smoke?”

Plucking the cigar out of his fingers, Gabe takes a drag and tries to ignore the dampness on the end of it. Handing it back to Jesse he says, “Yeah, it’s not fire country out here. Just not inside or around the kids.”

Jesse nods, and falls next to Gabe as he walks down the path from the back deck. They’re some distance from the house when Jesse stubs the cigar butt out against the bottom of his shoe, pockets it, and says, “I might’ve overheard your sister in there.”

Gabe’s back stiffens a bit. “It’s not polite to eavesdrop.”

“No, but when it’s my job and my client tends to keep his mouth shut, I gotta keep my ears open.” They walk in silence for a bit more, winding down the path to the lake. “If you want anyone to think that you’ve made progress in your personal life, you’ve gotta sell it a bit. I know we’re strangers, technically, but we’re s’posed to be together. Together enough to go to your ex’s wedding.”

They’re at the lake at this point, and Gabe stops to pull off his shoes and socks, rolling his pant legs up to his knees. He walks gingerly over the rocks until he gets to the water, wading in a few feet as he wiggles his toes in the mud. A minute later, Jesse joins him. His feet are long and bony, paler than the rest of the skin that Gabe’s seen. Gabe’s looking down, and he doesn’t notice the arm around his waist until it’s there. It’s rare that someone can get into his space so easily.

He looks over at Jesse, his face unable to decide if it wants wide eyes or to glare. He settles on something vaguely disapproving. 

“We’re supposed to be dating,” Jesse says calmly. “If you flinch every time I get within six inches, you’re gonna seem like a jumpy fool.” 

He’s...right, loathe as Gabe is to admit it. He lets himself adjust to the feel of someone close enough that he can smell the clean scent of soap and something fainty spicy, deodorant or cologne, perhaps. Jesse has an easy thumb tucked into his waistband, kept from touching Gabe’s skin by his shirt, and his fingers rest calmly, comfortably on Gabe’s hip. Gabe looks out at the sun making its slow, meandering way towards the horizon, and shifts over to wrap an arm behind Jesse’s shoulders.

None of this is...familiar. The people that Gabe sleeps with, he doesn’t touch other than to fuck. There’s nothing close, nothing _ knowing _ about it. He hasn’t been publically, chastely intimate like this since - 

Well. Since Jack. Since Gabe’s body was fifty pounds of muscle lighter, since his hands were clean of blood and his mind was without true regret, since nearly thirty years, thirty lifetimes ago. 

“You okay?” 

Gabe loosens his fingers from where they were tight on Jesse’s shoulder. “Yeah. I - yeah, you’re right. Need to get used to it.” He moves his big toe, scares away a tiny investigative minnow. “This is illegal, by the way.”

“We’re sober and clothed, so I don’t quite see how.”

“Lake Casitas is drinking water for the region. You can boat and fish and all, but you’re not supposed to actually be in the water.”

“I’m pretty sure our feet are cleaner than some old canoe. Or a buncha fish shit,” Jesse says meditatively as he nudges mud onto Gabe’s foot with his own, slowly covering it up.

Gabe rolls his eyes and shakes the mud off, using the arm around Jesse’s shoulders to tug him towards shore. “Come on, we’ve got tortillas to make.”

When Jesse tangles his fingers with Gabe’s when they get close to the house, Gabe doesn’t say anything, just breathes careful and slow.

-x-x-x-x-x-

They get back and Gabe makes his way to the guest room, Jesse following. Their bags are on the bed, which is looking very, very small to Gabe’s eyes that are just now realizing they’re going to be sharing it. 

Gabe nods at the bathroom. “Tick check.”

“Uh. What?” Jesse looks confused and somewhat alarmed.

“We were in the woods. Check yourself over for ticks, they get everywhere.” And the way that Jesse’s shirt had been riding up at the back, showing smooth tan skin, had made for a tempting sight.

For the ticks. Obviously.

Jesse goes hesitantly into the bathroom and shuts the door. Gabe checks himself over quickly with the ease of long practice, and is just pulling his shirt back down when he hears, “Gabe?”

“Yeah?”

Jesse opens the door. The fly of his jeans is down, revealing a sliver of red underwear, and his face is pale. “I. Found one.”

“Tweezers are in the medicine cabinet. Just pull it off, make sure that the head comes with it.”

Jesse’s face slowly turns from pale to blotchy red. “I uh. Can’t really reach it.”

Gabe gets up, gently pushes Jesse back until they’re both in the small room. There’s not much space. “Where is it?”

Hunching his shoulders a bit, Jesse turns around so his back is to Gabe. “On my ass.” He sounds embarrassed.

Grabbing the tweezers, Gabe kneels on the floor. “I’m just going to -” he reaches up, tugs Jesse’s pants and underwear down a bit. “Which side?”

“Left.”

Gabe doesn’t see anything at first other than tanned, hairy skin covering toned muscle as he pulls Jesse’s pants down and down. “Oh, there we go.” The tick is big and black, already swollen with blood and attached to the lower curve of Jesse’s ass, just a few inches above where it turns to thigh. Gabe bites the inside of his lip rather than take the risk of saying any of the thoughts going through his head.

Pulling up on the skin - warm, soft - Gabe snickers a bit at Jesse’s flinch. “I thought you were supposed to be the professional here. So jumpy.”

“Normally people don’t have their hands on my bare ass, and certainly not to pull off some bloodsuckin’ insect!” Jesse’s voice is higher than usual, almost hysterical.

“Ticks aren’t insects. They’re arachnids, like spiders or scorpions.”

“Oh well _ that _ makes me feel a lot better! Get it the fuck offa me.”

“Calm down and stop tensing up, you keep moving it around.”

“Just. Get it off please before it infects me with something,” Jesse says, voice tight.

“It hasn’t been long enough to infect you,” Gabe says. “And it’s just one tick. Used to have this one agent, always wore dresses off duty, refused to wear anything else. Went walking around in tick country and came back with her legs just solid ticks, completely covered.”

“Did they...drain her?” Jesse sounds horrified yet fascinated.

“Nah, they don’t take much blood. Not enough to kill a human anyways.” Gabe stands, small wriggling black thing held in the tweezers. “All done.”

Jesse stares at it with a disgusted look on his face, oblivious to how his pants are drooping low enough at the front to show the start of a thatch of dark hair. “You distracted me with that story so you could pull it off. Tell the truth, that girl was fine.”

“Oh no, she died a couple of months later from Rocky Mountain spotted fever, but that’s because she was a dumbass that never went to the doctor,” Gabe says cheerfully. “Pull your pants up, dinner should be ready soon.”

He leaves Jesse in the bathroom, adjusting his own pants on the way out. It really was a nice ass.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Dinner goes as well as could be expected. Natalia babbles, Christina pokes at Gabe, Aliza keeps the peace. Jesse sits next to Adrian, and Gabe doesn’t miss how he asks him quiet questions that eventually get answers. He even gets a smile out of the kid, although it’s because Jesse does a cuttingly accurate impression of Gabe that leaves everyone laughing at him for a while. It’s worth it.

After dinner they sit outside, the kids running around and chasing after fireflies as the adults have drinks and talk quietly. Gabe is on a hammock that Jesse pulled him down into, attempting to relax into the arm tucked behind his head.

A foot jabs at his thigh. Gabe grabs it, but when Christina squawks he just rubs it a bit instead of yanking like he first wants to. “You gonna be okay?” she says, serious look on her face. “You and Jack were…” she trails off.

Gabe sighs. “Yeah. I know.” He feels Jesse go quiet and still beside him, like he’s trying to be unobtrusive. “He emailed me, said that he kept in touch with you and Mom?”

Christina nods, with a glance out at where Aliza is in the backyard with the kids. “Mom more than me, but yeah. You know we always loved him, even after...all of that.”

After the arguments, two young men who were sure they both knew everything and it wasn’t the same thing.

“He works with veterans now, you know.”

Gabe rolls his eyes. “Can’t decide if that makes things better or worse.”

Christina smiles a bit, pulling her foot out of Gabe’s grip to nudge at his knee and set the hammock swinging. “You made dinner, we’ll clean.”

Gabe and Jesse are left alone on the porch, moving back and forth quietly in the warm evening breeze. Despite himself, Gabe has found himself relaxing back into Jesse, head pillowed on his bicep as he looks up at the sky. There’s no light pollution here, not like in DC.

“You’re lucky,” Jesse murmurs, voice nearly blending into the buzz of insects coming from the woods. “To have them, all of this. ‘S nice.”

_ And you fit right in _, Gabe finds himself thinking out of nowhere before frowning at himself. He blinks at the finger that traces over his lowered brows, and turns his head to find Jesse smiling sleepily at him as he nudges the frown away with a blunt finger.

“None of that,” he says, and Gabe can’t help the corner of his mouth from twitching up.

They’ve been running around since the early hours of the morning, and between that and the jetlag Gabe and Jesse make it an early night. If he were more awake Gabe would probably be more worried about sharing a bed with someone he was attracted to, but the time difference and stress take everything out of him. 

They get undressed and fall into bed, and Gabe can’t remember anything past his head hitting the pillow.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Gabe’s eyes snap open at 5:30 am just like always - but that’s 2:30 in the morning here in California. The house around him is quiet, the familiar creaks of old wood constantly settling a soft background noise. There’s a line of warmth against his back, and Gabe looks behind him to see Jesse flopped out on his stomach, head turned away from him. He’s breathing deeply, not quite a snore. It’s...weirdly soothing. 

He thinks for a minute about how he can’t remember the last time he slept next to someone that wasn’t on a mission, and closes his eyes.

Waking at a more reasonable time - his phone says six am - Gabe gets up a few hours later. Jesse looks to still be out for the count, so Gabe dresses quietly for his run. He finds Christina in the kitchen dressed in her own workout clothes, and she silently hands him a cup of coffee. They drink without talking, and go out on the porch to stretch. Gabe follows Christina, he knows that she has her usual routes.

They come back an hour later, sweat cooling in the chill morning air. Jesse is at the breakfast table with Aliza, eyes half closed and steaming coffee in hand. His eyes open as Gabe comes in, and open further to look him over. Gabe might be scarred up as hell, greying hair and eyebags, but something in him settles smugly at knowing how his body looks.

“You are aware this is a vacation, right?” Jesse asks, and the gravel in his voice makes Gabe think of other things that could make it sound that way. 

“Vacation doesn’t mean lazy,” Gabe says, and drains a bottle of water from the fridge. He drops a kiss on his mother’s head, and after a pointed look from Jesse when the others aren’t looking, presses a kiss to Jesse’s cheek as well. His skin is rough with morning stubble, and Gabe can smell the staleness of sleep still on him. It’s not a bad smell.

Gabe showers, deliberately not thinking of anyone when his hand moves downwards. Not thinking of broad hands or shaggy hair or...

He sighs at himself as he directs the spray to wash the evidence down the drain and gets out, grabbing a towel. Just two days, and then he’ll never have to see Jesse again. Can go back to his normal life, his normal routine, his normal -

“Jesus _ Christ_,” is said softly from behind him as Gabe is towelling himself off with his back to the door. He wraps the towel around himself as the door snicks shut and he glares back at Jesse, who’s looking at the floor with just a touch of color high in his cheeks.

“And so you decided to come in instead of shutting the door with you on the other side because…?”

“Because we’ve supposedly been dating for four months and it’d be mighty strange for me to not be enjoyin’ you naked,” Jesse says steadily, any hint of embarrassment seemingly gone. “You better not have used up the hot water.” He walks into the bathroom and shuts the door, and Gabe hears the sound of clothing hitting the floor.

Getting dressed as quickly as possible, Gabe goes downstairs to find the kids up and clamoring for pancakes. He obediently makes batter, and is halfway through the batch when he feels arms slide around his waist.

“So what are we up to today?” Jesse’s voice says, low in his ear. It’s strange to feel someone his height, his size behind him, and Gabe clenches his hand on the ladle so he doesn’t do something stupid like accidentally punch the guy. Combat habits are unfortunately hard to break, even when the arms around him are strangely steadying.

It turns out they’re up to doing what Aliza asks of them - the morning is spent picking up her dress for the wedding from the dry cleaner’s, and the afternoon is mostly devoted to fixing the steps to the shed in the backyard. Gabe takes Jesse aside, tells him that he can just stay inside, that his job isn’t to do manual labor. Jesse just looks at him, squeezes his shoulder, and goes to pick up a hammer.

As gregarious and outgoing as Jesse is, he seems to be comfortable being quiet. It’s most evident in how he holds nails for Adrian, talks to him quietly but not condescendingly. Gabe hears the kid say more than he has in years, and all to Jesse. 

Once the steps are all fixed Jesse finds himself wrapped up in one of Christina’s strong hugs. He looks surprised, then understanding, and carefully hugs her back. Later, when Jesse settles himself back in the hammock next to Gabe - who automatically moves over to make room for him - he asks about it.

Gabe sighs and looks up at the darkening sky. “Adrian was closest to Margaret. Nothing against Christy, but you know how kids are. Not on purpose, just how personalities work. He was her mini clone. Natalia bounced back, but with him it’s...been more complicated.”

He shifts, looks at Jesse. “I’m not -” He doesn’t know how to say it.

Jesse’s mouth twists up, something wry, something sad. “Don’t get too close, because I’m not comin’ back?”

Gabe just looks back up at the sky.

That night it’s harder to fall asleep, as they’re both more awake, more adjusted to the time. They both shower off the sawdust and get undressed - Gabe’d had to scrounge up sweatpants to wear as he didn’t want to bother Jesse, and while it hadn’t been an issue the night before, now he feels too hot. It might just be the warmth of Jesse next to him, who seemingly dropped off as soon as his head hit the pillow. Gabe gives up after an hour and gets out of bed quietly.

He scrounges a pack of waffles for the kids out of the freezer, and takes them out to the porch without bothering to toast them. He lays back in the hammock and looks out at the forest.

“How the hell do you keep looking like you do and still eat like you’re in high school?” Gabe holds a frozen waffle out without looking, and Christina takes it as she sits next to him in the hammock, warm against his side. “The hell is this, cinnamon? I’ve got to tell mom to start getting healthier stuff for when the kids are here.”

“Not stopping you from eating it.”

“You either, viejo.”

They’re quiet for a bit, then: “You’ve seemed tense. More than usual.”

Gabe sighs. “Can’t imagine why.”

“Is it the Jack thing, or the Jesse thing?” Gabe doesn’t answer. “I like him. So does Mom, so do the kids. I don’t know why you keep…” she trails off.

“Keep what?”

“Keep looking at him like he’s about to disappear. Like this is some kind of weird last goodbye. You guys aren’t breaking up, are you?” Christina doesn’t sound happy about the idea.

“No, that’s not - not it. It’s not him.” For a second Gabe wants to tell her everything, that he’s so socially inept that someone had to hire a goddamn date for him. That he thought he was comfortable being alone, that the idea of someone making a place in his life was deeply unsettling. That maybe he doesn’t want Jesse to leave after, but there’s no other way it could go.

“I thought - I don’t know. That coming here, seeing you all, then seeing Jack I could find some kind of endcap to our idiotic ancient relationship.”

“Why do you need one? You have Jesse now.”

_ But I don’t_, Gabe thinks. It’d be a helluva lot easier if he did. He just presses a kiss into Christina’s hair and settles back, trying to muster the energy to go back to a bed with Jesse in it.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The next day passes quickly - Gabe and Jesse are in charge of the kids for the morning while Christina and Aliza go to get their hair and nails done for the wedding. One of Aliza’s former students is apparently going to babysit the twins for the evening. Jesse teaches the kids blackjack, which Natalia takes to with terrifying aptitude. They play for candy, and Gabe is disturbed at how well the children are doing. It’s something that will harmlessly annoy his sister, though, so he encourages their interest.

Jesse makes grilled cheese for lunch, and Gabe refuses to admit to himself that somehow it’s the best grilled cheese he’s ever had. Jesse hands him half of the last sandwich, and they munch companionably together as they watch the kids play some intricate game together in the backyard. 

“You ready for tonight?” Jesse asks, brushing crumbs off his hands into the grass. Gabe shrugs, mouth still full of rather too much cheese for the time of day. It’ll be a miracle if he fits into his suit. Jesse gives Gabe’s forearm a squeeze, hand warm and reassuring. “It’ll be fine,” he says. “I’ll be there, your mom and sister will be there. You’ll see the guy, congratulate him, and get to move on with your life. I bet you’ll only have to say a few words if you want to, given how busy I bet he’ll be.”

Gabe glances over, and Jesse’s looking at him with - warmth in his eyes. Like he actually believes what he’s saying, like he actually supports Gabe and wants him to do well, like he isn’t just doing this for a job. He reaches a hand up to Gabe’s face, and Gabe’s breath stops in his throat for a moment. What -

Jesse brushes crumbs from the sandwich out of Gabe’s goatee. “We’re both a mess. I’m gonna go shower and get ready if you keep an eye on the kids, yeah?” He levers himself up with a large hand pressing down on Gabe’s shoulder, and is gone the next instant, the sound of the door behind him closing loud in Gabe’s ears. Gabe lets his head fall into his hands and wonders when the fuck this became his life.

“Uncle Gabe?” Natalia is standing in front of him, curious look on her face.

“Hey, kiddo.” Gabe pulls her in for a hug, needing to touch - someone, anyone right then.

“What’s wrong with your face?”

Gabe lets her clamber around until she’s hanging off his neck like a monkey, breathing in the smell of grass and strawberry shampoo and family. “I don’t even know, kid. Let’s get you inside.”

Aliza and Christina get back soon, and Gabe turns the kids over to them so he can get ready. Jesse is in front of the mirror in the bedroom, but Gabe ignores him in favor of grunting a hello and making his way into the bathroom. It smells of spicy cologne and clean soap, and Gabe tries to shut his nose off as he showers. He trims his beard and dresses quickly - charcoal grey three piece suit, cut far closer to his body than he’d ever normally pick for himself. Gabe tends to pick his clothing with ‘could he fight his way out’ in the back of his mind, but these pants are way too fucking tight for that.

Thanks, Ana.

Gabe comes out of the bathroom to find Jesse in his own suit, doing up his tie. It’s a dark, dark blue, and the style is so close to what Gabe’s wearing that it looks like they coordinated on purpose. Gabe shoots a dark thought in Ana’s direction, not trusting her or Sombra one bit. 

Frowning, Gabe tugs at Jesse’s shoulder until he’s facing him. “You do this for a living, how are you so inept at tying a tie?”

“Sombra said I was supposed to use a...windsor knot? I dunno, but I can’t fuckin’ tie it.”

Gabe rolls his eyes and slaps Jesse’s hands away. “A windsor knot is too big for the width of tie you have.” His hands move quickly, automatically from decades of meetings, and moments later he’s snugging the knot up against Jesse’s throat. He feels Jesse breathe in, out, and takes his hands away. “There you go.”

Jesse looks at him, from very close. “Thank you.” He turns, examines himself in the mirror. “What the hell knot is that?” he asks, curiously.

Shrugging, Gabe ties his own tie. “Kelvin, I think? Something like that. Used to get bored before meetings, practice different knots. Not much different than rope tying, when you get down to it.” When he sees Jesse’s slowly raising eyebrows, he sighs. “Military, remember? Get your head out of the gutter.” 

“Sorry, darlin’, that’s where it lives. You ready? You mom was hollerin’ for you while you were finishin’ up in there.”

They troop downstairs, and Gabe sighs as Aliza pats their cheeks and tells them both how handsome they look. She gets misty eyed for a moment: “You remember you prom, Gabi? You in that horrible powder blue tuxedo -”

At Jesse’s bark of laughter, Gabe wheels and points a finger at him. “It was the eighties, okay. I looked goddamn fantastic.”

“We’ve got pictures somewhere we can show him, I can prove that that’s not true.” Christina backs away as Gabe goes for her, shrieking about her hair. He settles for jabbing her in the side. She does look lovely, and for a minute Gabe wishes that she could find someone again, someone to lean on. Someone as good for her as Jes- 

Nope. Gabe cuts the thought off before it can even finish.

They pile into the car - Gabe’s mother insisting on driving as she isn’t drinking. Gabe’s fingers dig into his thighs - he’s a bad passenger, even worse when it’s his mother who drives as aggressively as Gabe does. Jesse’s hand settles on Gabe’s, rubs until his fingers have loosened. Gabe looks over, frowning, but Jesse isn’t even paying attention - he’s deep in conversation with Christina about something involving chili and beans. 

Aliza catches her son’s eye in the rearview mirror, and Gabe rolls his eyes and looks out the window, feeling like he’s eighteen again.

The wedding is happening only a short drive away - a small parklike area surrounded by mountains, with the lake visible on one side and the ocean on the other. There’s a gazebo and bench seats, and the reception will presumably be in the lodge nearby. Gabe hasn’t thought about marriage in decades - since he broke up with Jack, to be honest - but if he ever got married?

It’d be somewhere like this.

They lose his mother and sister quickly - his mom is popular and well liked in the community, and Christina comes to visit enough that she’s fairly well known as well. Jesse nudges Gabe’s shoulder with his own, and Gabe realizes how tense he is. “You all right?”

Before he can answer, there’s a wavery voice saying, “Gabriel!”

It’s Mrs. Starr, one of his and Jack’s high school English teachers. Of course Jack would still be in touch with her. “Hey Mrs. Starr, how are you?”

A frail hand pats at his cheek. She has to be close to ninety if she’s a day, but her eyes are still as sharp as ever. “All these years, and you haven’t changed a bit. And who is this fine young man?”

Gabe introduces Jesse to her, the word ‘partner’ coming out of his mouth with frightful ease. After that it’s a whirlwind of people that Gabe hasn’t seen in a quarter century and had no intention of ever seeing again. None of them seem surprised to see him there, even though he’s with someone else and Jack’s getting married to another man.

That’s just the kind of person Jack was.

Still is, seems like.

A string quartet at the front plays a few bars, and everyone files into the seats. Gabe gets his first view of Jack, up at the front. He looks...good, from what Gabe can see at this distance. Hair starting to fade into white at the temples, but it works on him. He’s - broader than Gabe remembers, the lankiness of youth long gone. They’re all older now.

Jack smiles, small and mouth closed but no less real for it, when Vincent comes up to stand next to him. Vincent is about what he looked like in the pictures Gabe could find - tall, dark hair, dark eyes. He seems as delighted to be with Jack as Jack is with him.

The vows are short, and Gabe doesn’t hear any of them. He just watches the man he thought he’d spend the rest of his life with for years marry someone else and feels - 

He’s not sure what he feels. On one side of him his sister is wiping her eyes and on the other there’s the warm press of Jesse’s shoulder, and right now that feels like - enough. 

Like he’s not missing anything.

They end up in the reception line, and all too soon Gabe is face to face with Jack. This close Gabe can see the lines at the corners of his eyes, the lines around his mouth. Wrinkles from stress, but from smiling, too. Jack’s face breaks into a broad, familiar grin that slams Gabe in the chest for just a moment before he pulls him into a tight hug. Gabe doesn’t know Jack in this body - in his own body, either. It’s still comforting, though. Like wrapping himself in a quilt his grandmother made, something worn and reassuring in its familiarity. 

When he pulls back, Gabe is surprised to feel - warmth. The warmth of seeing an old friend, of seeing someone doing well. Not anything close to jealousy or arousal or any of that. Jack just looks too happy and Gabe...doesn’t need it. 

“I’m glad you came,” Jack says, voice rougher but still the same old Jack. He introduces Gabe to Vincent, who greets him with a broad smile and statement that he’s heard so much about him. Jack turns the slightest bit red - the decades haven’t cured that at all - and mutters something about the past being important. Gabe introduces Jesse, and the newly minted husbands are nothing but pleasant and welcoming. 

Jack presses a final kiss to Gabe’s cheek and they’re gone, swept away towards the reception hall. Gabe makes his way to the thankfully open bar, and orders a whiskey. Jesse gets a drink of his own, and leans back against the bar next to Gabe.

“They seemed nice.”

Gabe gives a short, bitter laugh, and takes a large sip. “They are.”

“So why do you look like you just swallowed a lemon whole?”

Downing the rest of his drink, Gabe wonders if it would be crass to get another. Decides he doesn’t care, and lifts a hand to the bartender. “I’d built it all up in my head. Our last conversation was a fight, and I guess I didn’t realize that I’d been holding onto that - anger for this long.”

“Anger at what?” Jesse doesn’t sound judgemental, though for all Gabe knows he’s laughing inside.

“At having the conviction to do what he thought was right, even though it meant breaking up with me.” Gabe sighs. “I wanted my career and to have Jack, too. But he...he always put what he thought was the greater good above himself. Even when that meant me.”

He finishes his second drink, and rolls his eyes when Jesse hands him a glass of water. “He always was better than I was, as a person.”

Jesse makes a noise of derision. “That may well be true, but it’s not like it makes you an evil guy. ‘S not like there’s Jack and then pure sinners. You love your family, your friends. Enough on both of those counts that you let yourself get roped into this so they don’t worry about you. I can’t speak much for your job, but trust me in that I’ve spent time on the arms of the absolute worst of what the military can produce, and you’re not them. The fact you worry at all about bein’ a good person says you’re not a bad one.”

Gabe eyes him skeptically, before plucking his glass of bourbon out of his hand and finishing it.

“Please note that bein’ a good person and bein’ a prick aren’t mutually exclusive,” Jesse says with a crooked smile.

Gabe wants to kiss the grin off of his face. Maybe he should cool it on the booze for a bit. They make their way to the tables, find Gabe’s name near his family’s and a few people Gabe recognizes from high school. Jesse is all charm, talking to people from Gabe’s past easily, slipping in little facts about Gabe that he didn’t even know Jesse had picked up. 

He doesn’t know what it means that he didn’t realize Jesse’d had an arm around him until he feels the loss of warmth when it moves away. Somehow Jesse has snuck into his situational awareness and make a place for himself without Gabe noticing. It feels...as wrong as much as it feels so very right.

Jack’s parents hunt him down, pull him into tight hugs. They’re good people, a second home that Gabe could go to growing up. Jack’s mother has tears in her eyes when she looks at Jesse and then Gabe, tells him how happy she is that he’s settled down. There’s something sour in Gabe’s stomach as he smiles and thanks her.

Dinner is eaten, but Gabe couldn’t tell you what it was with a gun to his head. He just keeps thinking about how happy everyone is that he’s with Jesse. How apparently he wasn’t complete until he had a goddamn boyfriend. What the fuck - he’s the same man he was before, same personality, same job. Why is he now supposedly doing fine, just because he’s in a relationship?

In the back of his mind Gabe knows that he did this to himself. That he’s the one that said in the first place that he needed to come with someone. It doesn’t keep him from seething, though.

“So did a crème brûlée kill a friend of yours or what?”

Gabe blinks, Jesse’s voice having startled him out of the depths of his own head. “What?”

“You’re glarin’ at it hard enough for it to catch fire. Again,” Jesse says gently, the dessert in front of Gabe somehow where his eyes ended up. A tug on his arm: “Come on, I need a smoke and you need a walk.”

They grab drinks on their way out, Jesse lighting up as they wander slowly along a path that encircles the building. The warm California air has cooled down as evening descended, and the season’s last fireflies are blinking on the air. It’s hard to hold onto anger when everything is quite this picturesque, and Gabe gives Jesse a grudging smile as he borrows the cigar to take a drag.

“You met the man and it went great, you showed everyone that you’re doin’ well and a functional human being, and yet somehow you’re grumpier than ever.” Jesse bumps Gabe’s shoulder with his own. “Talk.”

Gabe decides to finish the cigar, on principal. “Shot myself in the foot, I guess. Make everyone think that you’re doing well, and you start to get angry that you’re not.”

Jesse sighs. “You understand that it’s not me, right?” Gabe frowns. Shaking his head in obvious frustration, Jesse tries again. “It’s not that they thought you were...defective, or whatever shit you’re thinkin’, until I came along. They think that you’re happy, now. I don’t know what you’re like when I’m not here - and mind you, I’m not sayin’ any of this is because of me, but you’ve certainly been more cheerful than the first few times we met. It’s probably some combination of gettin’ that closure you were talkin’ about, seeing your family, having the stress of bein’ set up by well-meaning people taken off of you...god knows.” Jesse snatches his half-smoked cigar back from Gabe’s slack fingers and takes a long drag. 

“Maybe they’re all happy for you, but don’t blame them for thinkin’ you’re doin’ well when that was your goal,” he says finally, stubbing the butt out on the arm of a bench.

Gabe swallows down the last of his drink. “They give you a psych degree along with knowing how to dance at balls?”

“Nah, just good at people.” Jesse links his free arm with Gabe’s, steering him back towards the lights of the reception still going on inside. “You’re not...less than. Maybe you stay single forever, maybe not.” They both squint into the light as Gabe pushes open the doors. “You’re able to fake it well enough that I’m sure you’ll be fine if you do end up with someone. You’re not ancient, nothin’s a done deal.”

They’re back at the bar, and Jesse turns to Gabe with two shot glasses in hand. He hands one over, and downs his own. “Come on. Shot for luck.”

Gabe throws back the tequila, setting down the glass and looking at Jesse mistrustfully. “Luck for what?”

Jesse just grins and grabs Gabe’s hand, and the next thing he knows they’re on the dance floor. “I don’t dance!” he protests.

“That’s fine, I can dance enough for both of us!” Jesse has strong arms wrapped around Gabe, and as much as he’s protesting it’s backed by laughter. He gives in, Jesse’s enthusiasm is surprisingly infectious. They both lose their suit jackets at some point, skin damp with sweat.

Everything is fine up until the music slows and the lights dim. Gabe’s ready to take a break, but Jesse pulls him in. “Come on, it’s the full wedding experience,” he says, voice warm with amusement in Gabe’s ear.

Gabe smirks but doesn’t go anywhere, sliding an arm around Jesse’s waist as he’s tugged close by arms around his shoulders. The fact that they’re the same height makes things more intimate than it might be otherwise, Jesse’s cheek right against his, breath puffing against Gabe’s neck. Gabe doesn’t want to say anything cheesy like _ the world faded out, _ but somehow he just stops paying attention to anything that isn’t the arms around him, the waist under his hands, the damp skin against his own.

He doesn’t mean for it to happen, really he doesn’t. Gabe knows that this is a professional relationship, that Jesse is getting paid for it. But somehow one moment he’s pulling back a bit just so he can see what Jesse’s face is doing and the next there’s a pair of lips under his. 

Jesse tastes like tobacco and bourbon, like a thousand bad decisions. It doesn’t stop Gabe from sliding a hand up under Jesse’s waistcoat and tugging him right up against him. Doesn’t stop Jesse from making a noise deep in his throat and grabbing onto Gabe’s face with both hands, pulling like Gabe could get any closer than he already is.

The kiss ends, but they only part an inch or so. Is a kiss really over when you’re still wrapped around each other like this, when you’re still breathing the same air?

“We, ah.” Jesse’s eyes are still closed and he licks his lips. Gabe can feel the faintest brush of his tongue against his own mouth. “We should go.”

It’s like a bucket of cold water to the face - this isn’t real, _ they _ aren’t real. Jesse has done his fake boyfriendly duty, now it’s time to go. Gabe nods and steps back. When Jesse opens his eyes, gaze immediately on Gabe, it’s like a slap to the face. His eyes are so very dark, almost hazy, and it takes everything in Gabe not to step right back into his space and dissect that expression of his from the inside.

Instead he takes another step back, and links his fingers with Jesse’s. He stops by his mother’s table - she hands over the car keys, saying that she and Christina will catch a ride home with some friends they’re catching up with.

The ride home is like a spring slowly being pulled apart. The tension is so thick he can almost taste it and Gabe’s brain won’t shut off, won’t stop wondering if he’d gone too far, if he’d pushed Jesse too much. Jesse was on a job - Gabe knew what that was like, having done enough undercover work in the past. He’d done his share of unsavory activities in the name of his career, and it makes his shoulders tight to realize that this is all he is to Jesse. 

A job.

The babysitter is a woman in her early twenties, someone Gabe vaguely recognizes. He pays her, and bites back a snarl when he watches her eyes move appreciatively over Jesse as he goes up the stairs. The kids are asleep, she says, have been for a while. He thanks her, watches to make sure she gets to her car all right.

Gabe toes his uncomfortable dress shoes off before padding up the stairs. Jesse hasn’t bothered to turn any lights on other than what looks like a dim one in the bedroom - thankfully the kids are a floor down and on the other side of the house. He makes it two steps into the room before the door shuts behind him and Gabe is slammed up against it. Jesse’s mouth is hot and wet against his, and Gabe loses himself in the kiss for a long minute before he pulls back for breath. 

“Tell me I can do this, Gabe, tell me we can -” Gabe doesn’t let Jesse finish the sentence before he’s holding his face between his hands, learning how soft his hair is and what Jesse’s voice tastes like on his tongue. Jesse’s hands are restless, plucking at the buttons on Gabe’s shirt and the knot of his tie. Somehow Gabe isn’t surprised that he’s as talkative here as he is everywhere else. 

“Wanted to get you out of this suit as soon as I saw you in it. Fuck, get over here.” Jesse pulls Gabe over to the bed with surprising strength, shoves Gabe down on it and climbs right into his lap. Gabe’s head seems to be together a bit more, and he gets Jesse’s shirt off first. Jesse’s all broad shoulders and tan skin, muscles jumping as Gabe’s fingers run over them greedily. It’s so much better when he knows the person, he thinks dazedly. When the tension’s been building for days with every look, every touch - 

Gabe is glad that Jesse’s hands are under his shirt, wrapped around the muscle at his waist, because he’s putting nailmarks down Jesse’s back and he needs that to be okay. Needs it to be okay that regardless of who they are to each other they’re here now, needs it to be okay that Jesse’s biting bruises into Gabe’s neck and god help him, Gabe wants them there. Wants people to know that Jesse’s his. Maybe even that Gabe is Jesse’s.

Pants vanish without Gabe noticing that they were ever there in the first place, and then Jesse is pushing Gabe back hard enough that he bounces on the bed. Any objection he might have had vanishes into a helpless moan as Jesse mouths across his underwear, wet with spit and precome and clinging tight enough that he’s not sure if Jesse knows he’s still wearing them. The underwear goes the same way as his pants and then Jesse’s sinking down on him, tight and warm and wet. 

It’s good, so good - better than anyone Gabe has been with in the scraps of his memory that are available to him right now. A thrill of possessiveness and rage runs down his spine in a quick zing as he wonders for a moment how Jesse got this talented, who he had his mouth on to get to this point. Even that dissolves under the insistent pressure of Jesse’s tongue, which Gabe falls apart under far too fast. He doesn’t even have it in him to give a warning, just arches his back with a groan and empties himself into Jesse’s willing mouth. 

He watches with half slitted eyes as Jesse licks stray drops away on his path up to Gabe, and Gabe yanks him close to taste himself on Jesse’s lips. Jesse goes back to nibbling Gabe’s collarbone as his hands wander lower and lower, squeezing over the ass that’s been tempting him for goddamn weeks now. He slides his hand inside of Jesse’s indecently tight underwear, lets his fingers dance over the cleft that they don’t have the time or supplies tonight to address. 

God he wants to, though. And by the feel of Jesse’s breath catching against Gabe’s throat, the feeling is mutual. As Gabe works his way around to the front, wrapping his hand around a cock messy and slick with anticipation, he catches Jesse’s mouth with his own once more. He could kiss Jesse forever, he thinks to himself.

The end of forever is coming fast, though. Jesse doesn’t have it together enough to kiss Gabe any longer, his wet red mouth slurring out words that Gabe can barely catch. He moans his release out into Gabe’s throat, the sound vibrating somewhere deeper than his bones, deeper than his marrow. Gabe’s wrist is sticky and wet, and he wipes it off on Jesse’s underwear before pulling them off and tossing them into a corner.

Gabe has just enough energy to yank a blanket over them and hit the switch on the lamp before they collapse into bed. Jesse’s wrapped tightly around Gabe, and he enjoys the feeling for a scant minute until he gives in to sleep.

-x-x-x-x-x-

It’s that early morning grey of false dawn, the minutes before the sun pops over the horizon. Gabe is warm and content, satiated in body and soul in a way he hasn’t felt for a long damn time. The faint sounds that woke him continue, so he cracks his eyes open. He opens them wider when he sees Jesse fully dressed and zipping up his suit bag.

“Jesse?” he rasps out, painfully aware that his voice still sounds like sex and sleep. Jesse’s back stiffens, but he doesn’t stop what he’s doing. He finally zips his duffel up, and when he turns around the expression on his face makes Gabe feel like he’s been punched in the gut. It’s closed off, somber and tight in a way that he’s never seen Jesse look before. 

“I have an early flight,” he says. “A car’s comin’ by in a few minutes.”

“Jesse, I -”

“Enjoy the time with your family, Gabe. I have - another job that suddenly came up. You can tell them whatever you want, family emergency or somethin’.”

_ But Jesse said he didn’t have any family left,_ Gabe thinks inanely before his still half-asleep brain connects the dots of ‘other job’ and fuck. _ Fuck. _ His _ job. _

“I uh. I’m sorry I don’t have, you said it was a thousand, I don’t have that much cash -”

If Jesse’s face had been closed off before, it was downright impenetrable now. “Don’t worry about it.” 

“But -”

“I’m glad things worked out for you here,” Jesse says, and as nice as the words are they somehow sound like a guilty verdict being handed down. He gives Gabe a final, tight smile, and hoists his bag over his shoulder. Gabe sits, poleaxed, listening to his footsteps go down the stairs. By the time he gets the idea to go after him, there’s the sound of a car door shutting and an engine driving away.

There’s a gentle knock on the open door. Christina is there, face still creased from sleep and puzzled. “Did Jesse leave?” She takes in Gabe’s expression and her own hardens. “What’s wrong with your face.”

“It’s...he had a family emergency. It’s not okay, but. He had to go.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Gabi.” She folds her arms, head tilted. “You sure you’re okay? You don’t look it.”

“Yeah. Just. It was unexpected, you know?” It doesn’t sound believable to his own ears, but Christina’s worried eyes seem to be accepting it.

“You really love him, don’t you?”

It’s not love, not really. Not after three days and a few meetings. And yet Gabe, for lack of a better option, nods his head helplessly.

“That’s sweet. In, you know. A kind of pathetic way. I’d come in and give you a hug, but frankly it smells like a whorehouse in here. Go shower and for god’s sake throw shit in the laundry before you give Mom a heart attack.” 

Even though it feels like he’s been gutted but somehow still walking around, his sister’s comforting abrasiveness pulls a smile at the corner of Gabe’s mouth.

He gets up, and starts his day. Alone, like usual, like always.


	3. Chapter 3

Back at work, the world is turning the same as it ever did. Gabe still has an operative in Malawi, still has a team in Chile, still has to figure out how the fuck to deal with the fallout from extracting that journalist. Dealing with four days’ worth of paperwork has him scrambling to make sure everything is on track. Ana isn’t around, thankfully - she’s at some conference in Switzerland. 

By the end of the week, Gabe finally has everything in order. He declines an invitation to go out with some people for drinks - he needs to just be alone, goddamnit.

Which of course means that an hour after he’s gotten home and worked his way half through a six pack, there’s a knock on his apartment’s door. Three guesses as to who it is, and the first two don’t count. Gabe doesn’t bother getting up. Sure enough a minute later there’s the rattle of keys, and he wonders once again why he gave her a key in the first place.

(It was because she kept picking the locks, but that was beside the point.)

There’s rummaging in his fridge and the clink of bottles before Ana emerges from his kitchen with a bottle of iced tea in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. “I don’t know how you drink this,” she says derisively, as she cracks the cap and drains a quarter of the tea. “Too sugary.” She fills the space up with vodka, shaking the capped bottle as she sits. “Now. Talk.”

Gabe finally takes his eyes off the soccer game he lost track of half an hour ago and looks at her. Ana raises one eyebrow, then the other, and takes a swig. “That bad, eh.”

“It went fine.”

“Really.”

“Mom and Christy loved him, the wedding was fine, I met Vincent. Jack’s doing well. And I don’t...feel anything for him, now. It was good, I guess. Cathartic.”

Ana folds her slim legs up, tucking herself into the corner of the couch like something grown there. “So why do you look like you just broke up with someone?”

Gabe doesn’t know how to explain it. “Remember Raed?”

Ana’s eye narrows at the mention of her long, long ago boyfriend. “Unfortunately.”

Waving a hand, Gabe says, “It’s not about him. Remember how you broke up, and you got used to being you, being on your own. And then you found Sam. And you guys just - fit together.”

Ana tilts her head. “So you’re panicking over the escort being such a good boyfriend, getting used to it after so long alone, and now you’re grumpy over how someone dared to get into your personal space.”

Gabe looks at her for a long moment. “Oh, Gabriel. Tell me you didn’t fall for the escort.”

He looks away. “I told you none of this was a good idea from the start.”

Ana’s voice is gentle, if a little blunted by the vodka she keeps topping her tea up with. “It was just a job, dear. He goes to events, plays whatever role they assign him, and then goes back and writes up a debrief of it.”

“I know.” Gabe despises the sound of his own voice right then. 

“At least one of you was a professional.” Ana gives him an assessing look, and squints suspiciously. “Tell me you didn’t sleep with him.”

Gabe looks into his beer bottle.

“Gabriel.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t _ mean _ to? What, did he trip and fall on your dick _ accidentally_?” She plucks the bottle out of his hands and sets both it and her own on the coffee table. Gabe bites back the comment he wants to make about coasters because he thinks she might actually take his head off at it. 

“Start from the beginning.”

He does, because after decades of friendship she’s probably the only one he can tell it all to. He tells her how Jesse worked his way in under his skin, into his family’s graces, into the delineation of where Gabe’s body ended and the rest of the world began. He skips over some of the details of the final night - no need to torment her quite that much - but quietly gives her the rest.

By this point Ana’s reclaimed her drink. She rubs her forehead with her free hand, the spot above her missing eye where she always gets a tension headache. “So he turned down the payment?”

“Yeah.”

“And it sounds like he was. Hmm. Angry, perhaps, that you even offered it.”

“I don’t know about that but -”

“It’s clear that there are many things you don’t know about, Gabriel, and this is included. I don’t think you were the only one who got too invested.”

Gabe takes Ana’s bottle, lets the bite of alcohol push down and eat away at the curl of hope that dared raise its head somewhere in him. “You think?”

“Perhaps. But that isn’t an endorsement. He’s a hooker, Gabriel, and you work for the US Government. You know, you _ know _ that there’s no way that this doesn’t end in tears.” Her voice is gentle but implacable, and at the end of it all she’s right, damn her eyes. Eye. Whatever.

Ana comes closer, lets Gabe rest his head on her shoulder. It takes everything in him stamping down his pride to mutter _ stay _ into her shirt, but she nods. 

She borrows a shirt that she swims in, gets into Gabe’s bed with the ease of long familiarity. Ana sets her eyepatch on the bedside table, lets her grey-streaked dark hair out of its braid to flow over the pillows. Things that only family gets to see. Gabe nestles his head into her ribcage, and falls asleep to the motion of her narrow fingers threading through his hair.

Ana’s right, of course. It’s foolish for him to have even been upset at all - there was no way that it could have ended well. It was a job, it’s over now. Move on, next operation.

Right? Right.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The next day Gabe deletes Jesse’s number from his phone. He cleans his apartment top to bottom, letting the gunge of the past week that’s built up be replaced by the acidic scents of cleanser and lemon. 

He also gets around to unpacking his bag that’s been sitting in a corner of his bedroom for most of a week. Gabe’s angry when he finds a pair of red underwear and a sock that don’t belong to him, but is downright furious when he realizes that one of his favorite shirts is missing. It was one of his old Marine shirts, worn thin and perfectly soft. He’s just hoping that it’s shoved under the guest bed in his mother’s house and not anywhere else. 

Gabe gets back into the rhythm of life. Work, runs, occasional get togethers with coworkers, missions, getting dragged out by Ana and Fareeha. He would swear that everything is fine, that he is fine, but he doesn’t miss the Amaris’ worried eyes that keep lingering on him. 

There’s an email in October from Jack. Saying how good it was to see him, how he’d missed him. Gabe stares at it for a long time before carefully archiving it. He pulls it back out and answers it a few days later. He’s more honest than he intends to be, but - it’s Jack. Jack knows him still, will probably always know him. Jack says that he was also worried about inviting Gabe, that he’d been nervous at how they’d left things on such a bad note all those years before but - it’s Gabe. 

Then there’s a phone call from him at Thanksgiving. How are you, how’s the family. It turns into a several hour conversation, and Gabe finds himself smiling, really and truly smiling for the first time since Je-

No. Let’s not think about that.

It’s nice, to have him as a friend again. His marriage - and Gabe’s supposed relationship as well - take any flirting off the table so they can just learn to be friends without the romance for the first time. It’s good for Gabe, to have someone he can talk easily with. Weirdly, unfortunately, he realizes that Jack would be the perfect person to talk about the Jesse situation with.

A situation which doesn’t exist anymore.

Because it ended. And Gabe certainly doesn’t think about it that much.

(This is a lie.)

(One he tells Ana and himself.)

Everything is going pretty well, up until the annual Christmas party. Gabe had been planning on skipping it like usual, but Ana said that a friend of hers in budget said that his department wasn’t doing well enough for him to blow it off. Gabe resigned himself to an evening of freezer burned canapes and awkward small talk that he still might blow off.

At least, until goddamn General Petras hunted him down. 

Petras is the head of the entire division, and one of the few people that Gabe tamps down his temper to talk to. Mostly because there’s no such thing as tenure here and even Gabe could be fired if he said the wrong thing. Gabe is in the situation room, listening to the sound of gunfire as he watches through a dozen bodycams. This op is the culmination of taking down the heads of a group they’ve been after for most of a decade, so Gabe isn’t surprised when Petras wanders in.

He gives him a quick salute and a nod, and then it’s all muttered orders. Half an hour later it’s done - everyone is either dead or in custody, and while his team isn’t unscathed no one has been killed. Petras is delighted, all clapping Gabe on the shoulder and telling him that ‘big things could be in store’ for him. Gabe doesn’t know what that means, but it’ll hopefully be good. Another promotion, or more stability for his team. He’d take any of it.

“Excellent work,” Petras booms out afterwards, as he and Gabe walk back to their offices. “I’ll be seeing you at the party next week, correct? We’ll have to recognize your team’s accomplishments!”

Gabe would rather get his fingernails pulled out by the roots, but he gives a short nod and murmured assent. It’s looking like this is now going to be mandatory, damnit.

“You should bring that man of yours,” Petras says, and Gabe stops in the middle of the corridor before hastening to catch up.

“Sorry, sir?” He doesn’t think he sounds too strangled.

“I’ve been working with Morrison on some of the projects his foundation is doing. He said you two went way back, that you and your partner even came to his wedding. I love that! It’s great to see veterans’ groups supporting active soldiers.” Petras keeps talking, but Gabe’s brain has stalled out.

Fuck.

He calls Ana in a frantic haze a few hours later, and once she gets the story out of him she can’t stop laughing. 

“This isn’t fucking funny, Amari!”

“Oh no, I really think it is.” Another snort. “Just...say he couldn’t come. He’s sick, or what have you.”

“He knew Jesse’s name! What he looks like! And if I fuck up any of this, I might not get whatever Petras is dangling over me. We need his support, Ana.” 

She coughs, badly hiding more laughter, before clearing her throat. “I’ll contact Sombra, see what she can do.”

He gets a call from Sombra a few days later. It’s only three days ‘til this farce of a forced party, and Gabe’s gnawed his thumbnails down to the quick. 

“So,” she says. “Screwed yourself over again, did you?”

“I get enough of it from Ana. Please just put me out of my misery and say that he’s available.”

“He is. You’re paying this time, though.”

“Sure, whatever,” Gabe says, uncaring now that he knows that his job is secure. And that he’ll see Jesse again, but that’s something he’s not going to admit under torture, especially not to Sombra. “How much?”

She names a number that makes Gabe choke. “I beg your fucking pardon?”

“What part of ‘elite clientele’ did you miss, you fool? Either pay or not, I don’t care, but you only get a date with money.”

Gabe should have expected it, given the what Jesse had said sex cost. He grumbles, but gets out his credit card all the same. He hangs up the phone, poorer but with a plan. He sits back, realizing that in just a few days, he’ll get to see Jesse again. The faint smile on his face fades as he realizes what that means. He picks up his phone again.

“Ana? You need to make me look like a real person.”

“Finally. Only took twenty years.”

-x-x-x-x-x-

Gabe sits at a table in the coffeeshop around the corner from the hall that their division rented out for the party. He’s systematically shredding the rim of his empty cup as he thinks about how the night is going to go. He asked to meet here so he and Jesse could talk for a few minutes. About the job yes, but also - 

He doesn’t even know. To ask why Jesse had left so abruptly? Gabe’s fairly positive that Jesse would have slipped out the door without waking him if he could have. He’d said he’d had another job but Gabe doubts it. Maybe to see even just why he didn’t want Gabe to pay. That’s what’s really been eating him up. If Gabe had paid, it would have clearly, clearly been a job. A transaction. But instead Jesse had looked upset and lit out of there like his ass was on fire. 

And yes, Gabe was likely blinded by his own social ineptness, by his anxiety over Jack, by his worry about wanting his family to be okay. But as bad as Gabe is at social shit, he can also read people dead to rights. And he’s sure, he’s fucking sure, that it wasn’t just him. That Jesse wasn’t just playing some role that he made up, that he actually -

That he actually meant it.

Gabe is debating getting another cup of coffee just so he can have something else to do with his hands when someone sits down in the seat across from him.

It’s...not Jesse.

But he’s familiar, somehow. Gabe has a memory for faces, and he knows that he’s seen this one before, somewhere. He’s closer to the kind of skinny twink that he’d expected Sombra to give him the first time, but it’s more than that. His brows draw down, and the young man with blue streaked hair grins at him.

“Just as grumpy as advertised, I love it.”

“Who the hell are you.”

“Oh, you’re delivering on all fronts, aren’t you. I’m Genji, I’m your date for the night.” His smile somehow gets brighter. 

“You’re not.”

“You see, there was a bit of a mixup, Jesse’s not feeling well -”

“I don’t think I was clear enough,” Gabe bites out, and finally the smile is fading. “My boss is expecting Jesse here. He has his name and description. This is not a goddamn build-a-boyfriend situation, I needed him specifically.”

Genji looks serious, now. “I know that this isn’t what you, ah, ordered exactly, and I’ll see if Sombra can possibly refund you some -”

“Don’t bother.” Gabe’s placed him now - the person he didn’t know in the background of Jesse’s phone. The guy that Jesse said founded the company along with him and Sombra. Gabe doesn’t know what this guy’s deal is, but he knows Jesse, knows who Gabe is and yet -

Jesse sent Genji instead. 

Okay.

Gabe sees how it is.

He gets up, grabs his coat. Ignores Genji’s murmured _ nice _ as he slips it on. Genji scrambles after Gabe, nearly getting hit in the face by the cafe door shutting. “Aren’t you going the wrong way?” he says, panting a little to keep up with Gabe’s fast pace. “The hall is in the other direction.”

Yes, yes it is. Pity that Gabe isn’t going to the party anymore. His eyes land on a sign that he’s been looking for, and he’s pushing his way into the bar a moment later. Gabe sits, sets his coat down and gets ready for a long evening. “Glenlivet,” he growls at the bartender, then: “Leave the bottle.”

“So...no party?” Genji still sounds far too cheerful for - well, for anything, really.

“Why are you still here.” The scotch burns just right, and Gabe pours himself another. 

“Well, I am getting paid. At least I think I am. So I’m with you for the evening, whether you want me to be or not.” A pause, as Genji drinks from a glass that has too many colors in it. There are _ layers_. “Also I am now worried that you might drink yourself to death.”

Time passes. Gabe isn’t sure how much, but half the bottle is gone and he’s finally feeling the kind of numb he’s been looking for. Genji switched over to soda a while ago, and he’s chewing on his straw as he watches Gabe with lidded eyes.

With a sigh, Genji spits the straw out. “I’m bored, and this is pathetic.” He sniffs at Gabe’s bottle for a moment before shrugging and pouring some into his own glass.

“That’s fifteen year scotch you just mixed with goddamn diet Coke.”

“What, you think it should have been Pepsi? Shut up, I’m doing you a favor here.” A long drink, and Genji’s sitting back in his seat. “If it helps, you fucked him up too.”

Gabe is silent.

“Not even a thank you, for betraying my best friend’s confidence?”

“I’m not fucked up.”

“Sure, and that explains why you’re downing your precious fifteen year scotch like it’s water just because Jesse didn’t show.” Genji sighs, rubs his forehead. “He hasn’t been taking jobs. He does some, for little old ladies that just want someone big and strong to hold on to but - fuck. He’s not happy.”

Gabe pours another double. “Doesn’t sound like my problem.” He drinks it, faster when he hears Genji’s muttered _ don’t know what he sees in you damn_. Gabe just gives him his nastiest smile and pours again.

“He wanted to come, you know. Sombra and I both told him it was a bad idea but nooo, can’t fucking tell that to Jesse. Then he started thinking - well, I honestly don’t even know what he was thinking, but he panicked. Worried himself sick and now here I am.”

Things are feeling a little fuzzy around the edges, which is Gabe’s only explanation for why he says, “He just left. Prob’ly would have left without waking me if he wasn’t so fucking noisy.” 

“Left when?” Genji sounds honestly curious.

“Morning after. Spent all that time worming his way into my family, thinks he can just fuck and leave. Adrian liked him. Even Adrian! He’s apparently been asking, wants to know if he’s coming for Christmas. Fuck.”

Genji’s rubbing his forehead, and is saying something under his breath that sounds an awful lot like _ Jesse you dumb bitch_. “Who’s Adrian?”

“Nephew. Fucker just. You can’t make kids like you and then just - just leave like that. Actions have _ consequences_. Can’t just leave.” 

“Mmm hmm, it’s the kid that you’re really upset about here, sure.”

“The kid, and Jack, and my mom. You don’t do that to my mom.” Gabe knows that the bottle’s almost empty and he never, ever lets himself get this drunk because his mouth just starts to run away with him. Blathering about Jack to Ana was the last time it happened.

Gabe is mostly talking to the bartop, but when he looks up every once in a while he sees Genji looking alternately amused and annoyed. When Gabe goes to pour himself another drink and the bottle is empty, Genji sighs and gets up.

“Okay, this has been fun and all but I’m not the one you should be saying this to.” He reaches into Gabe’s back pocket for his wallet, and Gabe’s pretty goddamn drunk but he’s fairly sure Genji gives his ass a squeeze on the way out. He pulls out a few bills to cover the drinks - “You made me listen, you’re definitely buying mine too” - and shoves the wallet back into Gabe’s pants. 

Hoisting Gabe’s arm over his shoulder - “God damn you weigh even more than he does. One of you is paying for a chiropractor, I don’t care who” - Genji gets them outside. Gabe blinks and they’re in a cab. He looks out the window to see where they’re going, but the lights streaking by make him nauseous. The cab stops, finally, and it’s something of an event to get Gabe out. He’s not sure where they are, but he’s going up the steps of a brownstone.

Genji turns enough lights on to not break his neck, and Gabe blearily looks around to see an apartment. It’s not his apartment, though it’s not dissimilar. Genji pushes and pulls him until Gabe is in a room, a bedroom, looks like. He’s pushed down onto the bed, his shoes pulled off. 

“Come on, wallet and phone out of your pockets, I’m trying not to molest you even as tempting as you are,” Genji mutters, and then pushes Gabe backwards. He lands on a pillow that smells - good, smells familiar. Gabe rolls over gracelessly, wriggles until he’s comfortable with his head buried in that nice smell.

“Heaven. There is a special, special fucking place in heaven for me. I hope you realize that,” Genji says conversationally, before there’s the sound of a door shutting and silence. Blessed, blessed silence.

Gabe snores.

-x-x-x-x-x-

Interlude:

(door opens and shuts)

“Look what the cat dragged in.”

“...you’re home early. How, uh. How’d it go?”

“You mean how did it go with meeting the man that you’ve been mooning over for months and then completely wimped out on, leaving me to deal with his asshole self?”

“Ah, so you met.”

“Mmm.”

“And?”

“And what.”

“And what happened, you fucker?”

“Nope. Boys who bail on what’s probably their soulmate don’t get to have any details. Now be quiet, I can’t hear Mary Berry over your bitching.”

“Ugh whatever. I’ll deal with you in the mornin’, don’t think you’re avoidin’ this.”

(door opens)

(door quickly shuts)

_ “Genji!” _

“That is my name, yes.”

“What the fuck is he doin’ in my goddamn _ bed_?”

“What part of be quiet did you not understand?”

(door opens)

“Christ, it smells like a bar in there.”

“That’s all him.”

“Ugh. Can you watch tv in your room? I’m gonna sleep out here.”

“Nope.”

“Genji -”

“Nope. Now get your ass back in there and deal with what was your fault in the first place.”

(heavy sigh)

“Where’s the aspirin?”

“By the microwave.”

(sound of cabinet opening, water pouring)

“I’m takin’ your Christmas present back to the store, I hope you know.”

“No, you’re not.”

(door closes)

“God, finally.”

_ “Okay bakers, there are five minutes remaining in this challenge…” _

-x-x-x-x-x-

Gabe dreams.

He dreams of a hand that feels cool against his heated skin, brushing over his cheeks. He dreams of familiar fingers teasing his lips open, of chalkiness on his tongue, of chilled water washing it down. 

He dreams of a hand running through his hair, of a low voice asking if he ever bothers to cut it, of asking _ what am I going to do with you _ , of asking _ do you know what you do to me _.

Gabe sleeps.

When he wakes up, his internal clock tells him he’s slept in later than he has in years. Also, he’s not sure where he is. It’s been quite a while since that’s happened. He keeps his eyes closed as he takes in his surroundings the best he can. Soft bed, far more comfortable than his own, in fact. A pillow that smells like half-familiar cologne and his own morning breath. Light warm on his face, a difference from the blackout curtains of his own apartment.

“I can tell you’re awake, you know. Your breathin’ changed.”

Gabe blinks his eyes open to see Jesse McCree slouched in an easy chair across from him. He looks...He doesn’t look _ good _, exactly: there are bags under his eyes, his hair is still damp and lank from assumedly a shower, and he’s looking at Gabe like -

He honestly has no idea how to interpret the expression on Jesse’s face, but it’s nothing good. Gabe sits up slowly, swings his legs over the edge of the bed. The scotch makes its presence known, and Gabe has to spend a minute clutching his head. He’s not twenty any more, why the fuck did he do this to himself?

“There’s aspirin on the nightstand.”

Gabe cracks an eyelid open, manages to get the bottle open blindly. He’s not actually sure how many he takes but he’s probably safe from a heart attack for weeks now. He downs the pills with the water sitting on the stand, not trusting his body to let him swallow them dry.

He licks his lips, tries to clear his throat. “Where. Am I?”

“In my bed. Genji dumped you there after you apparently made a mess of yourself.” Jesse tilts his head. “Not somethin’ I’d expect out of you.”

Gabe has never been so glad that he’s not someone who turns red easily. “Yeah, well. Didn’t expect you to be someone who would no-show when there’s a contract in place.”

Jesse frowns, and Gabe realizes it’s not an expression he’s really seen from him before. “Sorry I couldn’t fulfill the _ contract _.” The last word is spit out bitterly. “I’ll make sure Sombra refunds you.”

Fuck. None of this is coming out right. “Damnit. I just -” Gabe scrubs his hand over his face, hoping that when he uncovers it the world will make more sense. It doesn’t. He gives up, leaves the last shreds of his dignity at the door. “I wanted to see you again.”

Jesse’s still frowning, but it’s softened some. “There were easier ways to do that. You had my number, for one.”

“I did, but I might have deleted it after you. Left.” He’s slightly gratified to see Jesse wince a bit at that. “After you made it clear that I - that it all was just a job.”

It’s now Jesse’s turn to look away, to shift awkwardly in his seat. “Don’t be stupid, you know it wasn’t just a job.”

“No, I don’t know that.” Jesse looks at Gabe, eyes narrow and sharp. Gabe continues: “You spent all this time talking about how you develop a character, a role. And you played it so well that, hell, that my entire family and everyone I grew up with loved you. Jack talked you up to my fucking boss, did you know that? That’s why I wanted _ you _ last night, not goddamn Genji.”

“That the only reason?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Gabe mockingly repeats Jesse’s words from just a minute before. “You can’t just work your way into someone’s life like that and leave and expect it to be okay, role or not.”

Jesse pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers before tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. Gabe can’t help but look Jesse over, remembering the first time he’d seen him. He’d like to say it doesn’t pack the same punch, but it might actually be worse now that he knows the taste of his skin, knows the noises that can come out of that throat.

Gabe almost misses it when Jesse starts to talk. “It wasn’t a role.”

“What?”

Jesse sighs, drums his fingers on the arm of the chair. “A role is when I tell the bigwigs that I’m an Ivy League dropout who survives on the money from his daddy inventin’ Post-It notes.” Gabe snorts, and Jesse smiles a bit for the first time that morning. “Don’t laugh, it works pretty damn well.” He sobers, biting his lip for a moment. “A role isn’t when I make you my momma’s grilled cheese, when I argue with you about the books I’ve been readin’. It’s not when I sleep with you,” he says, quietly. “That was just. Me.”

Gabe isn’t sure if what he feels in his stomach is hope or nausea. Both, perhaps. “I thought it was part of the job. Or, well at least I didn’t, up until you left.”

“I woke up, and you were next to me, and my first damn thought was _ hey, I could wake up to this every day and be happy _. And so I panicked.” Jesse’s smile twists, becomes bitter. “First thing we always tell new employees. Never fall for the mark.”

“So I was a mark.”

“No, Gabe you were fuckin’ - you _ tried_. You’re a dick who’s probably pretty good at his job but I haven’t seen that so I can’t even give you credit there. You got roped into this bullshit by your friend but you didn’t fire me and you didn’t bail on the wedding. You care so fuckin’ much about the people you love you’re willin’ to put youself through hell for it. You...ugh.” Jesse sits back from where his vehemelence had made him move forward so he could gesture more emphatically. “You’re anything but a mark.”

They’re quiet for a minute, neither man really knowing what to say.

“Setting aside, well, everything really,” Gabe starts, speaking carefully. “You work for Sombra and do in fact exchange sex for money. Setting aside that I’m in the military and go through regular background checks for people who want to find any dirt they can on me, I’m...not the type of man who can share.” 

“And...this is my job. How I pay the bills.”

Silence descends on them again, this time with a tinge of melancholy.

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?” Both men look up to see Genji in the doorway, leaning on a hip with the previous night’s eyeliner still smeared around his eyes and a cup of coffee clutched in his hands. 

“This is a private conversation,” Gabe growls out.

“Then perhaps you should have had it with the door shut. In any event, back to what I was saying. Jesse, there’s a solution staring you in the face.”

He frowns, twisted around to look at Genji. “What?”

Genji heaves a dramatic sigh. “Do you really think that Sombra let you bail on all those jobs and do her paperwork for nothing? She’s gearing up to do...something involving hedge fund managers, I honestly don’t know or care what it is. Just take over for her, be the face of it. No more jobs, no more sleeping with people, not that you even did it much in the first place, you prude. She’s practically been planning it, getting you trained on everything, but you’ve been too much in your own head to realize it, you idiot. You’ve been doing all the bookings for weeks now.”

Jesse looks like someone hit him upside the head with something, and Genji just rolls his eyes before turning to Gabe. “You. Go shower, you’re bringing this whole place down. Spare toothbrush under the sink, towels are in the cupboard.” 

Gabe looks at Jesse, who jerks a head to indicate a door in the hallway. “Yeah, go for it. I’ll find some clothes for you.”

He gets up, goes to the bathroom, shuts the door. Looks at his face in the mirror as he brushes his teeth and winces - Jesus, it was a miracle Jesse didn’t kick him out of bed immediately with the mess he looks like right now. Shaking his head at himself, he shucks his clothes off and gets in the shower. He isn’t sure if it’s weird or not that he sniffs out the shampoo and soap that smells familiar, smells like Jesse and uses it. When he gets out there’s a pile of clothing just inside the door, t shirt and sweatpants. The pants are loose, the shirt tight, but it’s good enough. 

Gabe pokes his head outside the bathroom door, and doesn’t see anyone. He cautiously walks back to Jesse’s bedroom, feeling out of place in the empty-seeming apartment. Jesse’s in his room, tossing a pillow back onto the freshly made bed. He turns, and looks at Gabe more seriously than Gabe has ever seen him before.

“If I did it. If I stopped - doing that. Could we work?”

Even though Gabe had been thinking of nothing else over the past fifteen minutes, he still is at a loss for words. Ana’s friends with Sombra, though. And their company deals with the military a lot, technically, so - “I don’t see why not.”

Gabe takes a breath to say something, he doesn’t even know what, but it’s immediately out of his head as his arms are full of Jesse. Jesse - fitting against him just right, mouth biting into his like it belongs to him, pushing until Gabe stumbles backwards towards the bed. 

He’s the one that pushes Jesse down this time though, who pulls his shirt off with a sound of ripping stitches, who holds him down with enough strength to say that he could keep him there. Jesse wriggles under him - impatience more than anything else. “Get your goddamn clothes off, don’t know why you bothered redressing at all.”

Gabe’s own clothes disappear, but he’s not really paying attention. Not when he has Jesse laid out in front of him, naked in the morning light. It was too fast before for Gabe to really pay attention, not late at night and frantic with desperation. Now he gets that beautiful body laid out in front of him, the lines of him gleaming in the bars of light coming in through the window. 

Jesse squirms under Gabe’s intense gaze, but Gabe brushes it aside. “Stop that. Want to look at all of you.” It turns out that Jesse can blush all the way down to his chest.

“Figures you’d be a possessive bastard,” Jesse mutters, and Gabe gives a slow, filthy grin. He lays himself out slowly on top of Jesse, making him feel his weight, every inch of his body. He lets his thighs fall on either side of Jesse’s, gets the leverage for a long, slow thrust of his hips. Gabe can feel Jesse hard against him, feel the wet head of his cock slide against his stomach muscles. 

“I told you,” Gabe murmurs into the soft skin under the edge of Jesse’s jaw, that surprises a noise out of Jesse when he nips at it. “I don’t share.” He tastes his way down Jesse’s body, leaving small marks here and there in the shape of Gabe’s mouth, in the shape of his want. The hair on Jesse’s thighs scrapes like static against Gabe’s palms, and he moves them apart so he can settle himself.

Gabe is mouthing his way up the soft skin on the inside of Jesse’s left thigh when he feels Jesse moving around. He looks up just as Jesse sets a condom and a bottle of lube down by Gabe’s shoulder. “Please,” he says, and gnaws on his lip like it’s not what Gabe’s been thinking about for goddamn months. 

He gives a nip to the big tendon straining at the crease of Jesse’s thigh, soothing it with his tongue a second later. “Going to take care of you,” he murmurs into tan, damp skin, and the sound Jesse makes as Gabe works a finger into him is almost, almost worth all the time apart.

It’s not too many minutes later that Jesse nearly hits Gabe in the head on his way down to desperately clutch at the base of his dick. Gabe glances up at a sweat streaked throat, working slowly, before his chin lowers and he nearly bowls Gabe over with the force of his stare. “Not gonna last much longer, darlin’, he rasps out, and Gabe wastes no time in moving up to kiss the last of the words out of his mouth.

Pushing his way into Jesse is like how Jesse pushed himself into Gabe’s life - a little rough and awkward at first, but then like he’d always been there. Jesse clutches at Gabe’s hip for a while, keeping him from moving. Gabe runs a comforting hand up and down Jesse’s ribs, kisses his lax mouth gently. Gabe feels Jesse’s nod rather than sees it, they’re pushed so close together. 

They move together almost frighteningly well, and Gabe isn’t sure if it’s that it’s Jesse, or that it’s been months of anticipation, or that there are feelings involved, but it’s better than anyone he’s slept with in recent memory. Thoughts of anyone else soon vanish though, because Jesse is vocal and needy and demands every bit of Gabe’s attention. He’s willing, though. So willing.

Gabe’s orgasm takes him almost by surprise - one minute he’s staring at a drop of sweat tracing down Jesse’s cheekbone, the next his world is reduced to panting out small sounds into the hollow of Jesse’s throat as his hips twitch. It’s a long few minutes as he comes down from it, and he blinks himself back into the present as Jesse’s hand makes broad sweeps up and down Gabe’s damp back.

When he lifts his head, Jesse’s smiling indulgently up at him. “Hey, darlin’. You back with me?” Gabe answers by kissing him long and hard and wet, making sure there’s no room for words in his mouth, just Gabe. He reaches a hand down and Jesse’s slick enough that it’s almost like he came already. Maybe he did. Gabe is still in him, doesn’t bother pulling out because when Jesse twitches and clenches around him it’s just that fucking good, pleasure dancing around oversensitive pain. 

There’s a hand gripping Jesse’s hair and another on his cock, and Jesse’s fingers scrabble uselessly at Gabe’s back as he’s caught between the two. He moans his release out into Gabe’s mouth, Gabe greedily drinking in the helpless noises as Jesse throbs between them, warm and wet. Gabe pulls back when he realizes Jesse isn’t kissing him anymore. 

Jesse opens his eyes, shiny and dark, exhausted but satisfied. “Jesus. That the way it always gonna be with you?”

Gabe presses a few kisses to Jesse’s red, swollen lips. “Hopefully.”

Later, when they’re cleaned up and under the covers and Jesse’s head is pillowed on Gabe’s chest, careful fingers trace over the silvery scars marking up Gabe’s skin. 

“You able to tell me about any of these?”

For the first time in his career, Gabe realizes he wants to. Wants to tell Jesse about what he does, because Jesse would get it. Gets him. “Yeah. Not right now, but. Yeah.”

Jesse props his head up on a fist, other hand still running over Gabe’s skin. “Everything goin’ to be all right with last night? The party and all.”

All the good feelings flowing through Gabe are replaced by a lump of ice in his stomach that’s quickly spreading. “Fuck.” He reaches over Jesse to grab his phone, happily still with a bit of charge left. There’s a series of increasingly annoyed messages from Ana - she apparently managed to tell them that Gabe was down with a sudden illness, bless her quick-thinking self. 

He’s going to have to up her usual holiday chocolates and flowers, this requires a real gift. He texts her back about owing her forever and that things worked out. She can make of that what she will.

“It’s okay, apparently. Probably won’t get the departmental money I was hoping for, but oh well.” He doesn’t say _ I got what I wanted anyways _ but he’s fairly sure that Jesse can hear it regardless.

Jesse smiles lazily up at him. “You’re just a soft center under all that prickle aren’t you?” Gabe frowns down at him, but Jesse just smiles wider. 

“Show you how soft I am,” Gabe grumbles and rolls them over in bed. Jesse’s startled laughter echoes on the morning air.

-x-x-x-x-x-

When Gabe brings Jesse back to California a week later for Christmas, his mother already has a stocking made for him on the mantle.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! come harass me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/thereweregiants)


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